The light pirogues of the natives, flying hither and thither over the glassy waters, on errands of business or of pleasure, arrayed in flowers, or freighted with fruits and vegetables for the grand market of Tenochtitlan, made way, on every side, for the advance of the royal cortege, which, threading the shining avenues between the gaily-colored _chinampas_, that spotted the surface of that beautiful lake, like so many islands of flowers on the bosom of the ocean, danced over the waters to the sound of music, and the merry voices of glad hearts, rejoicing in the sunny smiles that now played on the countenance of the king, as if the clouds that had so long overshadowed it, were never to return. Tecuichpo, restored to more than her wonted gaiety, was full of life and animation. Never had she seemed, in the eyes of her doting father, and of the admiring courtiers, half so lovely as at this moment. She was the centre attraction for all eyes. Her resplendent beauty, her fairy-like gracefulness of motion, and the artless simplicity of her manners, won the admiring notice of all. Her gaiety was infectious. Her merry laugh reached, with a sort of electric influence, every heart in that bright company, and compelled even her father to abandon, for the time, his sad and solemn reflections, and give himself up to the spirit of the hour and the scene. Guatimozin was there, and exerted all his eloquence to keep up the spirit of the hour, in the earnest hope that Montezuma would put on all the monarch again, and assert the majesty of his insulted crown, and the rights of his house and his people, in despite of omen or legend, and in the face of every foe. Tecuichpo became more and more animated, till she seemed quite lifted above herself and the world about her. Suddenly rising in the midst, and pointing, with great energy of expression, to the royal eagle of Mexico, then sweeping down from his mountain eyrie, to prey upon the ocelot of the distant valley, she exclaimed-- 'Tis he! 'Tis he! our imperial bird! Whom the gods to our aid have sent; I saw him in my dream, and heard, As down from his airy flight he bent, His victor shout, with the dying wail, Of the coming foe, borne on the gale; While the air was dark with the gathering throng Of bold young eaglets, that swept along From every cliff, in fierceness and wrath, To gorge on their prey, in the mountain path. When she ceased, an echo from a richly cultivated chinampa, which they were then passing, seemed to take up and prolong the strain.