[Montezuma’s Daughter by H. Rider Haggard]@TWC D-Link book
Montezuma’s Daughter

CHAPTER XV
12/18

I found the Teule and brought him hither.

Also I caused the high priest to be sacrificed according to the royal command, and now I hand back the imperial signet,' and he gave the ring to a counsellor.
'Why did you delay so long upon the road, nephew ?' 'Because of the chances of the journey; while saving my life, royal Montezuma, the Teule my prisoner was bitten by a puma.

Its skin is brought to you as an offering.' Now Montezuma looked at me for the first time, then opened a picture scroll that one of the counsellors handed to him, and read in it, glancing at me from time to time.
'The description is good,' he said at length, 'in all save one thing--it does not say that this prisoner is the handsomest man in Anahuac.

Say, Teule, why have your countrymen landed on my dominions and slain my people ?' 'I know nothing of it, O king,' I answered as well as I might with the help of Guatemoc, 'and they are not my countrymen.' 'The report says that you confess to having the blood of these Teules in your veins, and that you came to these shores, or near them, in one of their great canoes.' 'That is so, O king, yet I am not of their people, and I came to the shore floating on a barrel.' 'I hold that you lie,' answered Montezuma frowning, 'for the sharks and crocodiles would devour one who swam thus.' Then he added anxiously, 'Say, are you of the descendants of Quetzal ?' 'I do not know, O king.

I am of a white race, and our forefather was named Adam.' 'Perchance that is another name for Quetzal,' he said.


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