With Otomie weeping at my side, I looked for the last time on the face of that most unhappy king, whose reign so glorious in its beginning had ended thus.

And while I looked I wondered what suffering could have equalled his, as fallen from his estate and hated by the subjects whom he had betrayed, he lay dying, a prisoner in the power of the foreign wolves who were tearing out his country's heart.

It is little wonder indeed that Montezuma rent the bandages from his wounds and would not suffer them to tend his hurts.

For the real hurt was in his soul; there the iron had entered deeply, and no leech could cure it except one called Death.

And yet the fault was not all his, the devils whom he worshipped as gods were revenged upon him, for they had filled him with the superstitions of their wicked faith, and because of these the gods and their high priest must sink into a common ruin.