I looked, but whether I saw the sight of which I am about to tell or whether it was but an imagining born of the horrors of that most hideous night, in truth I cannot say. At the least I seemed to see this, and afterwards there were some among the Spaniards who swore that they had witnessed it also. On Xaca’s lofty summit, now as always stood a pillar of fiery smoke, and while I gazed, to my vision the smoke and the fire separated themselves. Out of the fire was fashioned a cross of flame, that shone like lightning and stretched for many a rod across the heavens, its base resting on the mountain top. At its foot rolled the clouds of smoke, and now these too took forms vast and terrifying, such forms indeed as those that sat in stone within the temple behind me, but magnified a hundredfold. “See,” said Otomie again, “the cross of your God shines above the shapes of mine, the lost gods whom to-night I worshipped though not of my own will.” Then she turned and went. For some few moments I stood very much afraid, gazing upon the vision on Xaca’s snow, then suddenly the rays of the rising sun smote it and it was gone. Now for three days more we held out against the Spaniards, for they could not come at us and their shot swept over our heads harmlessly. During these days I had no talk with Otomie, for we shrank from one another. Hour by hour she would sit in the storehouse of the temple a very picture of desolation. Twice I tried to speak with her, my heart being moved to pity by the dumb torment in her eyes, but she turned her head from me and made no answer. Soon it came to the knowledge of the Spaniards that we had enough food and water upon the _teocalli_ to enable us to live there for a month or more, and seeing that there was no hope of capturing the place by force of arms, they called a parley with us.