By this time you must be well seasoned in dangers; one more or less will matter as little to you as to me.' Then I rose and followed him into the great cedar-panelled hall, where that very morning I had received adoration as a god.

Now I was a god no longer, but a prisoner on trial for his life.

Upon the dais where I had stood in the hour of my godhead were gathered those of the princes and counsellors who were left alive.

Some of them, like Guatemoc, were clad in rent and bloody mail, others in their customary dress, and one in a priest's robe.

They had only two things in common among them, the sternness of their faces and the greatness of their rank, and they sat there this night not to decide my fate, which was but a little thing, but to take counsel as to how they might expel the Spaniards before the city was destroyed.
When I entered, a man in mail, who sat in the centre of the half circle, and in whom I knew Cuitlahua, who would be emperor should Montezuma die, looked up quickly and said: 'Who is this, Guatemoc, that you bring with you?
Ah! I remember; the Teule that was the god Tezcat, and who escaped the sacrifice to-day.
Listen, nobles.