Supposing that Otomie was now as many were who walked the streets of Tenoctitlan that day, a mass of dreadful scars, hairless, and with blind and whitened eyeballs, should I then have shrunk from her?
I do not know, and I thank heaven that no such trial was put upon my constancy.

But I am sure of this; had I become a leper even, Otomie would not have shrunk from me.
So Otomie recovered from her great sickness, and shortly afterwards the pestilence passed away from Tenoctitlan.

And now I had many other things to think of, for the choosing of Guatemoc--my friend and blood brother--as emperor meant much advancement to me, who was made a general of the highest class, and a principal adviser in his councils.

Nor did I spare myself in his service, but laboured by day and night in the work of preparing the city for siege, and in the marshalling of the troops, and more especially of that army of Otomies, who came, as they had promised, to the number of twenty thousand.

The work was hard indeed, for these Indian tribes lacked discipline and powers of unity, without which their thousands were of little avail in a war with white men.
Also there were great jealousies between their leaders which must be overcome, and I was myself an object of jealousy.