You are Montezuma's daughter, could you not have brought it about during all these months that he issued his royal mandate, commanding that I should be spared ?' 'Do you, then, take me for so poor a friend, Teule ?' she answered hotly.
'Know that for all these months, by day and by night, I have worked and striven to find a means to rescue you.

Before he became a prisoner I importuned my father the emperor, till he ordered me from his presence.
I have sought to bribe the priests, I have plotted ways of escape, ay, and Guatemoc has helped, for he loves you.

Had it not been for the coming of these accursed Teules, and the war that they have levied in the city, I had surely saved you, for a woman's thought leaps far, and can find a path where none seems possible.

But this war has changed everything, and moreover the star-readers and diviners of auguries have given a prophecy which seals your fate.

For they have prophesied that if your blood flows, and your heart is offered at the hour of noon to-morrow on the altar of Tezcat, our people shall be victorious over the Teules, and utterly destroy them.