Now the king could not tell him what he had long suspected-that the differences in men were made up by men like children's stories were made up, except that differences among men were believed in. So the king told the warrior he had made a magic spell which would make pale men believe he was a slave and not the Actatl king. And this satisfied the warrior.

They ran through the night and in the morning they slept. For twenty-two days they did this, passing the home city of Moctezuma. And one morning they saw a fearful thing.

A pale man, twice as tall as other men, with much hair on his face and shiny metal on his head and chest, and two legs fore and two behind, walked past them, and instinctively the warrior shielded his king. But the king warned him again that he was to be treated as a slave, not a king, and there would be no more warnings. He could not give him another warning.

And they walked out of their hiding place and the tall pale man pointed at them a spear without a point but with a hole in it. And the king noticed that there was another head the same color as the body, and then he realized why the pale man had four legs and was so incredibly tall. He sat on an animal.

Had not the Inca to the south trained animals to carry bundles? This strange new animal had been trained to carry a man. And the king realized the metal was just something that was put on the pale man's head. This was confirmed when they entered a large camp, and the king saw some men with metal on their heads and some men without. He also saw the pale men and the strange animals separated, and not joined together.

He saw a queen of the coastal people sitting on a high chair next to a pale man, and he and the warrior were brought to them. The woman spoke the language of the Aztec, and she spoke to the warrior. As he had been instructed, the warrior gave his name and his function as an Actatl, then waited.