The eyes of the barbarian sparkled with a fierce fire while he continued,-- "What then should you look for in Mexico, but shelter and food?--a house to hide you from the angry men of Spain, and bread to eat in your hiding-place? Where are the quiver and the macana? Will the king's brother fight the king's enemies?" "If they be my countrymen, the Spaniards, _no_," replied Juan, with great resolution, yet not without uneasiness; for he read in the question, an early attempt to seduce him into apostacy. "I am the king's guest,--his prisoner, if he will,--his victim, if it must be,--but not his soldier." "Hearken then to me," said the Indian, with a stern and magisterial voice: "The king is the lord of the valley, the master of men's lives, and the beloved of Mexico; but he has not the heart of the old man gray with wisdom, and he knows not the guile of the stranger. Why should his brother do him a wrong? The king thinks his brother a green snake from the corn-field, to play with;[9] but he has the teeth of the rattling adder!" [Footnote 9: The Mexicans were accustomed to tame and domesticate certain harmless reptiles.] "Mexican!" said Juan, indignantly, "these words from the mouth of a Spaniard, would be terms of mortal injury; and infidel though you be, yet you must know, they bear the sting of insult. What warrior art thou, that canst abuse the helplessness of a captive, and do wrong to an unarmed man?" "Do I wrong thee, then?" replied the Lord of Death, grimly. "Lo, thou art here safe from thy bitter-hearted people, and wilt not even repay the goodness of the king, by striking the necks of his enemies, who are also thine! Is not this enough? Put upon thee the weeds of a woman, and go sleep in the garden of birds, afar from danger,--yet call not the birds down from the tree; hide thee in the bush of flowers, yet pluck not the flowers from the stem. Let the guest remember he is a guest, and steal not from the house that gives him shelter.--Does the king's brother understand the words of the king's slave?" "I do not," said Juan, with a frown. "They are the words of a dreamer;--" and he would have passed on towards the canoe, which he now perceived was waiting him near the wicket, but that the Lord of Death again arrested him. "The king is good," he said with deep and meaning accents, "but the wrong-doer shall not escape. Perhaps,"--and here he softened the severity of his speech, and even assumed a look of friendly interest,--"perhaps the Great Eagle has left his best friend among the fighting-men of Tezcuco? Let him be patient for a little, and his friend shall be given to him." "You speak to me in riddles," replied Juan, impatiently. "Let us be gone." The Mexican gave the youth a look of the darkest and most menacing character, and uttering the figurative name which Guatimozin had already applied to the princess, said,