"How shall I answer? Ipalnemoani[13] is the maker of life; it is the king who takes it. Olin-pilli is forgotten." [Footnote 13: One of the titles of the Supreme God, (_Teotl_,) who was not worshipped directly, but through the medium of his agents, the inferior divinities.] "Ay then, let him sleep; and to thy work, infidel, to thy work. Will Guatimozin have peace? He is somewhat late of decision; but the great monarch of Spain, who sends me to speak with him, and to enforce the vassalage acknowledged by Montezuma, is merciful. Speak, then, and quickly. My ships are on the lake, my soldiers are thicker than the reeds on its banks, and fiercer than its waters, when the torrents rush down from the mountains. Will he have the blood of his people flow through the streets, as the waters of an inundation, when the dikes are broken? Speak then, Lord of Death; will Guatimozin acknowledge himself the king's vassal, pay tribute, and govern his empire in peace?" "Hear the words of Guatimozin," said the ambassador, beckoning to the Tlameme to open their packs: "The king sends you the history of his land,"--taking up, from among many books, which made the contents of the first bundle, a volume of hieroglyphics, and displaying its pictured pages: "He has searched for the time when the king of Castile was the lord of his people; but it is not written. How then shall he kiss the earth before the Teuctli? He has sought to find to what race, besides the race of heaven, the men of Mexico have paid tribute: It is not written,--except this,--that once, when his fathers were poor and few, the men of Cojohuacan called on them for tribute, and they paid it in the skulls of their foes. The men of Castile call for tribute: Guatimozin sends them such tribute as his fathers paid; here it is--twelve skulls of the dogs of Chalco, taken in the act of rebellion." And as he spoke, the grinning orbs rolled under his foot against the platform. "Hah!" cried Cortes, starting up, with as much admiration as wrath, for he was keenly alive to every burst of audacious and heroic daring, "is not this a merlin of a royal stock, that will try buffets with an eagle? But, pho! the young man is besotted."