“Karee is never deaf, or silent, where the welfare of Tecuichpo is concerned.”
“Karee?”
“Yes, love, Karee! I want no better or more trusty oracle. She has, you know, a sort of ubiquity. Nothing escapes her keen observation. Few mysteries are too deep for her sagacity to unravel. In her brief occasional encounters with the strangers, she has gathered the meaning of not a few of the words of their strange tongue. What she has once heard she never forgets. Presuming that no one could understand them, they have talked freely and boldly in her presence. And it is from her that I learn, that the Castilian general said to one of his officers, as he crossed the court yard, this morning—‘While we have the Emperor with us, we are safe. We must see to it, he does not escape.’”
“Escape?” shrieked the agitated Princess; “then he is indeed a prisoner. But these white men are gods, are the gods treacherous?”
“The gods of the deep are all treachery, but not those of the blue fields and bright stars above us. But, be they gods from below, or gods from above, they are not the gods of Anahuac, nor shall they claim a foot of its soil, till it is drenched with the blood of the Aztec. Farewell. Fear not. I will yet see you return in triumph to the imperial halls of Tenochtitlan.”
CHAPTER VII.
TREACHERY AND RETRIBUTION—MASSACRE OF THE AZTEC NOBILITY—DEATH OF MONTEZUMA.
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And bloody treason triumphed. |
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Feeling dies not by the knife; That cuts at once and kills; its tortured strife Is with distilled affliction, drop by drop Oozing its bitterness. Our world is rife With grief and sorrow; all that we would prop, Or would be propped with, falls; where shall the ruin stop? |