"Ah! my brave Guatimozin! I know full well your courage and your zeal. But of what avail to us will be the direst vengeance your arms can wreak on the strangers, after the violence is done, and the honored head of my father--oh! that I should live to speak it!--laid low at their feet!" "Fear not, my beloved, they dare not, with all their boasted power, they dare not lay a rude hand upon that sacred person. They know, they feel, that they are treading on a mighty volcano, that may burst out at any moment, and overwhelm them in hopeless destruction. It is this sense of impending danger only that has induced them to invite the Emperor to their quarters, and so to urge their suit, that he could not, as their professed friend, deny it. While he is there, they will feel safe, for his hand alone can stay the pent up fires, that they break not forth at once. Fear not. I go to-night to Iztapalapan, to confer with your royal uncle, the intrepid Cuitlahua. The noble Cacama joins us there, convinced already that his was a mistaken policy, when he counselled your father to receive the strangers courteously, and treat them as friends." "And what can Cacama do?" "That is yet to be seen. He is convinced of his error, and is ready to atone for it with his life. With Cacama, with Cuitlahua, with a thousand more like them--chiefs who never feared danger, and never knew defeat--why should we despair, or even doubt?" "But how know you, Guatimozin, that these Castilian strangers regard their own safety as any way involved in that of Montezuma?" "I gathered it from the oracle, my love, and from omens which never deceive." "What oracle? What omens? I pray you explain?" "The omens were their own troubled looks and clouded brows, while this strange negotiation was pending, and the guarded watchfulness, with which they now protect their guest, and prevent the intrusion upon his privacy of any considerable number of his friends, at the same time." "Prince Guatimozin, do I understand the import of those terrible words? Is my father already a prisoner in his own palace?" "What else, my sweet cousin, seeing he cannot come forth, if he would, and we can only approach him by permission?" "O ye gods! has it come to this? Fly, Guatimozin. Fly to Iztapalapan. I release you from your pledge. Sound the alarm throughout the realm. And, if need be, _I_ will arm, and with you to the rescue." "Not so fast, brave princess; it is just this rashness that may endanger the precious head we would rescue. His life is safe at present; let us not put it to hazard, by moving too soon, or striking a useless blow." "But I see not yet, my dear cousin, how it is ascertained that my father is secure from further outrage. May it not be their policy to take away the head, hoping thus to dishearten and distract our people, and make them an easy prey to their victorious arms."