CHAPTER 16: A Treasure Room.
"'Tis infamous," Cacama said, as he paced up and down the room; "but what is to be done?
They hold him in their hands as a hostage, in the heart of his own capital, and among his own people; and are capable of hanging him from the walls, should a hostile movement be made against them.
"You were right, Roger Hawkshaw, in warning us against these men.
They are without faith and honor, thus to seize a host who has loaded them with presents, who has emptied his treasuries to appease their greed, and who has treated them with the most extraordinary condescension.

It is a crime unheard of, an act of base ingratitude, without a parallel.

What is to be done ?" Roger was silent.

Such a situation, so strange and unlooked for, confounded him.
"I should say," Cuitcatl burst out passionately, "that every Mexican should take up arms, and annihilate this handful of invaders.

What though Montezuma fall?
Better that a monarch should perish than a nation.