The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1895-01-02

nations Of Anahuac played the part that
your sons played the tale had run other
wise. They are dead, and because of their
death you would deliver us to our foes and
yours, but I, for one, do not mourn them
though among their number are many of
my kin. Nay, be not wroth, but listen.
1t is better that they should lie dead in
honor, having earned for themselves a
wreath Of fame and an immortal dwelling
in the houses Of the sun, than that they
should live to be slaves, which, it seems,
is your DESIRE people of the Otomie. There
is no false word in what I said to you.
Now the sticks that Malinche has used to
beat out the brains Of Guatemoc shall be
broken and burned to cook the pot of the
Teules. Already these false children are
his slaves. Have you not heard his COM
mand, that the tribes, his allies, shall la
Dor in the quarries and the streets till the
glorious city he has burned rises afresh
upon the face of the waters? Will you not
hasten to take your share in the work, peO-
pie of the Otomie, the work that knows no
rest and no reward except the lash Of the
overseer and the curse of the Teule? Sure
ly you will hasten, people of the noun
tains! Your hands are shaped to the spade
and the trowel, not to the bow and the
spear, and it will be sweeter to toll to do
the will and swell the wealth of Malinche
in the sun of the valley or the shadow of
the mine than to bide here free upon your
hills, where as yet no foe has set his foot!"
Again she paused, and murmur of
doubt and unrest went through the thou
sands who listened Maxtla stepped for
ward and would have spoken but the PEG
pie shouted him down, crying: Otomie,
Otomie Let us hear the words of Otto
mie''
Il thank you, my people," she said,
'for I have still much to tell you, Our
crime is, then, that we drew an army after
us to fight against the Teules. And how
did we draw this army? Did command
you to muster your array? Nay, l set out
my case, and I said Now choose You
chose, and of your own free will you dis
patched those glorious companies that now
are dead. My crime is, therefore, that you
chose wrongly, as you say; but, as l still
hold, most rightly, and because of this
crime I and my husband are to be given as
a peace Offering to the Teules. Listen. Let
me tell you something Of those wars in
which we have fought before you give us
to the Teules and our mouths are silent
forever. Where shall 1 begin? I know not
Stay; bore child-had he lived he would
have been your prince today. That child
I saw starve to death before my eyes; inch
by inch and day by day l saw him strive,
But it is nothing. Who am that should
complain because I have lost my son, when
so many of your sons are dead and their
blood is required at my hands? Listen
again., ;" and she went on to tell in burn
ing words of the horrors of the siege,
of the cruelties of the Spaniards and OF
the bravery of the men of the Oto1nic
whom l had commanded For full hour
she spoke thus, while all that vast audience
hung upon her words; also she told of the
part that 1 played in the struggle and OF
the deeds which [ had DONE and now and
again some soldier in the crowd who served
under me, and who had escaped the famine
and the massacre, cried out:
6 1t is true. We saw it with our eyes. -
"And so, she said, at last it was fiji,
ished, at last TenOctitlan was a ruin, and
my cousin and my king, the glorious Qua
temoc, lay prisoner in the hands Of Ma
linche, and with my husband Teule, my
sister, myself and many another. Ma
linche swore that he would treat Qua, e
moo and his following with all honor. Do
you know how he treated him? Within q
few days Guatemoc, our king, was seatet.
in the chair of torment while slaves burned
him with hot irons to cause him to declare
the hiding place of the treasure of Monte
yuma! Aye, you may well cry Shame
upon him!' You shall cry it yet more
loudly before 1 have done, for know that
Guatemoc did not suffer alone. One lies
I