"Not an hour, señor," said Juan, ardently. "Give me but time to exchange these heathen weeds and sandals for good armour and a warhorse, and I will depart instantly, with whatsoever force you may think fit to entrust to me."
"Art thou really, then, so hot after danger?"
"God is my protection," said Juan; "I thank heaven, that this duty is the most dangerous your excellency could charge me with: it is, for that reason, the most honourable."
"Sayst thou so?" cried the Captain-General, quickly. "There is one duty, at least, I could impose upon thee, which thou wouldst not be so hasty to accept? No, faith; for the very name of it has caused the boldest soldier in the army to turn pale.—Get thee to the armory; rest and refresh thyself: to-morrow thou shalt to Tochtepec."
"Señor, for your love I will do what others will not: I have years of benefaction to repay. I claim to be appointed to that task which is so dreadful to others."
"By my conscience, no," said Don Hernan: "this would be sending thee to execution indeed. And yet I know none so well fitted as thyself: Thou art fearless, cunning, discreet,—at least thou canst be so; and thou art a master of the barbarous language, I think?"
"Your excellency once commended the success with which I laboured to acquire it: my year's wanderings in the west have made it familiar to me almost as the tongue of Castile."
"It is a good endowment," said Cortes. "What thinkest thou of an embassage to Tenochtitlan?"
As he spoke, pronouncing each word with deliberate emphasis, he bent his eyes searchingly on Juan, and a smile crept over his features, as he perceived the young man lose colour and start.
"The man that would do me that duty," he continued, gravely, "would indeed deserve well, not only of myself, but of his majesty, the king of Spain. But think not I mean to overtask thee,—or that I seriously designed to try thee with this rack of probation.—There are bounds to the courage of us all."