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Updated: June 17, 2025
The Aztecs never kill if they can help it, but take prisoners, so that death comes to them in one way instead of another; and it is better to be killed in the service of the gods, than to fall uselessly in battle." "I don't think so at all, Malinche. In battle one's blood's up, and one scarcely feels pain; and if one is killed one is killed, and there is an end of it.
Upon the march Roger sometimes kept with Juan and Pedro, at other times walked beside Malinche, who, although wholly devoted to Cortez, had yet a warm and kindly feeling for her former friend. Cortez himself often consulted Roger as to the roads and places ahead, for he always received the native descriptions with some doubt, as he could not be sure whether they were honestly given.
Accordingly, he asked Malinche to teach him her language; and at the end of the six months he could converse with her in it, almost as readily as he could in Tabascan; for in learning it he had none of the initial difficulties he had at first encountered, in acquiring Tabascan the latter language serving as a medium.
After wandering about for some hours, the party returned to their quarters, where Roger gave, through Malinche, to Cortez an account of what he had noticed. "There is nothing new in that," Cortez said. "We know that Montezuma has done all in his power to prevent us from coming, and that now he knows he has wasted his treasures in vain, he must feel no goodwill towards us.
"You would have wives there," the girl said passionately; "and you would never think any more of me." Roger burst into a loud laugh. "Why, Malinche, I am only a boy! I am not yet eighteen; and in my country we do not think of taking wives, until we are eight or ten years older than that.
I could not take her away with me, because she would never be happy among a strange people, any more than I should be happy if I lived here. "No, no, Malinche, there is no fear of my marrying, any more than there is of my forgetting you. You can trust me.
"Malinche will wait," she said, and then hurried from the room. Before leaving, Roger gave Malinche several of the handsomest of the bracelets and necklaces that had been bestowed on him, in the first flush of his popularity at Tabasco; and gave presents also to the old woman. The two girls wept bitterly when he said goodbye to them, and Roger, himself, had to fight hard to restrain his tears.
He was one of the party who had been captured with the emperor; and had been at once released, by Cortez, when the latter was informed by Malinche that he had befriended and released Roger. That evening, the two friends had a long talk together. "You will be happy," Cuitcatl said, "and will come, in time, in your home in your own country, to look back at this terrible time as a troubled dream.
I have, all along, done what I could for my people; and though I am with the invaders, I am sure they recognize this, and that they feel no ill will against me. But now I fear that they will curse me, as they will curse them; and that, through all time, my name will be abhorred in Mexico," and she again burst into tears. "I do not think so, Malinche.
Had I gone to Cortez direct, he would probably have guessed, from my dress and from my speaking the language, that this was how I came to be here; but had I not seen Malinche before I saw him, she would have recognized me, and would no doubt have told Cortez that she had known me from the time I was cast ashore, near Tabasco, somewhat over two years ago.
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