Now I knew that my hour had come, and strange to tell, for the first time this day courage entered into me, and I rejoiced to think that soon I should have done with my tormentors.
Turning to Otomie I began to bid her farewell in a clear voice, when to my amaze I saw that as I had been served so she was being served, for her splendid robes were torn off her and she stood before me arrayed in nothing except her beauty, her flowing hair, and a broidered cotton smock.
'Do not wonder, Teule,' she said in a low voice, answering the question my tongue refused to frame, 'I am your wife and yonder is our marriage bed, the first and last.

Though you do not love me, to-day I die your death and at your side, as I have the right to do.

I could not save you, Teule, but at least I can die with you.' At the moment I made no answer, for I was stricken silent by my wonder, and before I could find my tongue the priests had cast me down, and for the second time I lay upon the stone of doom.

As they held me a yell fiercer and longer than any which had gone before, told that the Spaniards had got foot upon the last stair of the ascent.

Scarcely had my body been set upon the centre of the great stone, when that of Otomie was laid beside it, so close that our sides touched, for I must lie in the middle of the stone and there was no great place for her.