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It happened that after this the girl whose life I had saved came to dwell in my village, where I saw much of her. So lovely was she and so clever, that soon she won my heart, and the end of it was that, being headstrong and in love, I married her, against the advice of Antonio and others of my brethren of the Order. It would have been better for the Indian people, and perhaps for me also, if I had died before I stood at the altar with this woman, though for a while she was a good wife, and, because of her cleverness, of great service to me at that time.

Now, it must be stated that during all these months I had not been idle. The more I thought on them, the more the wrongs of my countrymen, the real owners of the land, took hold of my mind, till at length they possessed it utterly, and I became an enthusiast and a dreamer. This was the object of my life—to form a great conspiracy, which should bring about a rising of the Indians in every province of Mexico upon a given day; then, when the Spaniards and their bastards, the Spanish Mexicans, had been stamped out, to re-establish the Empire of the Aztecs.