Olmedo started. Cortes caught his sleeve, and looked at him fixedly.
“Mira!” he said, in a whisper. “As thou lovest me do this work well. If he fail—if he fail—”
“Well?” said Olmedo, in the same tone.
“Then—then get thee to prayers! Go.”
The audience chamber whither Oli and the priest betook themselves, with Orteguilla to interpret, was crowded with courtiers, who made way for them to the dais upon which Montezuma sat. They kissed his hand, and declining the invitation to be seated began their mission.
“Good king,” said the father, “we bring thee a message from Malinche; and as its object is to stay the bloody battle which is so grievous to us all, and the slaughter which must otherwise go on, we pray thy pardon if we make haste to speak.”
The monarch’s face chilled, and drawing his mantle close he said, coldly,—
“I am listening.”
Olmedo proceeded,—
“The Señor Hernan commiserates the hard lot which compels thee to listen here to the struggle which hath lasted so many days, and always with the same result,—the wasting of thy people. The contest hath become a rebellion against thee as well as against his sovereign and thine. Finally there will be no one left to govern,—nothing, indeed, but an empty valley and a naked lake. In pity for the multitude, he is disposed to help save them from their false leaders. He hath sent us, therefore, to ask thee to join him in one more effort to that end.”