TLACAELEL
            My lord, your wives entreat you to carouse,
            And tend a show of juggling acrobats.

MOTECUHZOMA
            When work is done. Recall those sorcerers.               Exit Servant.
            Till concrete facts come in, abstractions must suffice.

                                        Enter a Servant.

SERVANT
            Your majesty, a humble fisherman
            Brings news pertaining to these prodigies.

MOTECUHZOMA
            Admit him. [Exit Servant.] Lord, when peons paint my way!

                      Enter the Fisherman and Servant. He trails his hand            
                  on the ground toward him, and kisses his ***** fingertips.

FISHERMAN
            O master, ruler, lord, great gentleman,
            If witless lips which kiss the unswept earth
            Be fit to thus accost an emperor,
            Regard me, if it please your majesty.

TLACAELEL
            Speak, boy. Sublime Motecuhzoma hears.

FISHERMAN
            I come from Hellwood, at your southern shores,
            Where this week past, upon a beetling bluff,
            I glimpsed a buoyant, surging reef of hills
            With twining towers carousing on the waves,
            That seemed a transport for intruding rarities:
            A fear which whisperings in the wind confirmed.

TLACAELEL
            **, **, **!
            Was this the Spirit speaking, or the spirits?
            Some extra mushrooms in your salad, sir?

FISHERMAN
            Discard me if I lie! Hail, lords! All hail!

TLACAELEL
            All hail and sleet and snow, and all things cold.
            And chill reception from this wintry prince,
            For I suspect you seek remuneration.