They were in the center of a great city, with a warlike population.

It was broken up, by its canals with their movable bridges, into a series of fortresses; and it would be well-nigh hopeless to endeavor, by force, to make their way out of it.

At present all seemed fair, but they were well aware that Montezuma had endeavored in every way, save by open war, to prevent their coming; and that, influenced as he was by the oracles of the gods, he might at any moment exchange his apparent friendship for open enmity.
Two days after arriving at the capital, Roger asked Malinche if she could obtain permission from the general for him to cross the lake to Tezcuco, in order that he might pay his friends there a visit.
Presently she returned, saying that the general himself would speak to him.
Roger had been named Sancho by the Spaniards, as he had not ventured to give his own name; and it was supposed that he had forgotten that which he had borne as a child.
"Sancho," the general said; "I know, from what Marina says, that you have great intelligence, though you have so long been cut off from your own people.

You see that our position here is a strange one.

We are guests and yet, to some extent, we are prisoners.