theinselves of this truth, allow me to erect a cross on the summit of this temple; and in the chapel where stand your Huitzilopochtli and Tezcatlipoca, give us a small space that I may place there the image of the holy Virgin; then you will see what terror will seize these idols by which you have been so long deluded."

ONTEZUMA knew what the image of the Virgin Mary was; yet he was very much displeased with Cortes's offer, and replied in the presence of two papas, whose anger was not less conspicuous, "Malinche, could I have conjectured that you would have used such reviling language as you have just done, I would certainly not have shown you my gods. In our eyes these are good divinities: they preserve our lives, give us nourishment, water, and good harvests; healthy and growing weather, and victory whenever we pray to them for it. Therefore we offer up our prayers to them, and make them sacrifices. I earnestly beg of you not to say another word to insult the profound veneration in which we hold these gods."

As soon as Cortes heard these words, and perceived the great excitement under which they were pronounced, he said nothing in return, but merely remarked to the monarch with a cheerful smile, "It is time for us both to depart hence." To which Montezuma answered, that "he would not detain him any longer, but he himself was now obliged to stay some time to atone to his gods, by prayer and sacrifice, for having committed gratlatlacol, by allowing us to ascend the great temple, and thereby occasioning the affronts which we had offered them. "If that is the case," returned Cortes, "I beg your pardon, great monarch."*

The Spaniards now descended from the temple, and on the following day Cortes ventured to request of the emperor permission to convert one of the halls in their residence into a chapel, that they might celebrate the services of their church there. The forgiving monarch not only granted the request, but sent some of his own artisans to aid them in the work. In making the necessary alterations, the Spaniards had sufficient curiosity to take away the plaster from a recently closed up door, to see what was beyond, and they had thus disclosed to them the place in which the emperor kept the treasures he had inherited from his father, a private hoard, the value of which made those who first looked on it "almost speechless with astonishment." "As at that time I was still a young man," says Diaz, "and had never be

⚫ Bernal Diaz, chapter 92.

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fore beheld such vast treasures, I concluded that the whole of the remaining part of the world put together, could not produce such a vast collection of riches. However, all our officers and soldiers agreed to leave every thing untouched, and that the doorway should be walled up again as before, nor was Montezuma to be informed of our discovery."

A week had passed since the Spaniards had entered the capital, and though they had as yet no reason to complain of the manner in which they had been treated, they felt ill at ease. Their allies, the Tlascalans, were hourly suggesting the disadvantages of their situation, and looking at every movement of the Mexicans with the suspicion of enemies. The supply of food furnished for their tables was not so good as at first, and the least of a hundred circumstances might furnish a cause for their destruction. Besides, Cortes was not in the way to complete the conquest of the kingdom while he lay inactive as the guest of the king; and the latter could not be expected to continue friendly intercourse with him if he supposed that there was no intention on his part of departing. While the conquest was but just begun, the arrival of a successor from Spain, might rob him of the fruit of all his labour and sufferings, and another secure imperishable renown by marching past him on the road he himself had pointed out. This would also be one of the consequences of a retreat. Nor could he withdraw from the capital to Villa Rica, with any hope of safety, from the hands of what he had found to be a merciless and treacherous foe. View it as he might, his situation was full of danger, and prompt and successful action only could save him from ruin. But Cortes was never so much at home as when acting in the most fearful extremity. His active mind contrived a plan for his deliverance as bold as it was desperate. This was to get possession of the person of the emperor, and make the regard of his subjects for his safety, a guarantee for the security of the Spaniards against violence, while they used him as a tool for effecting the final success of their enterprise. Cortes immediately proposed the measure to his officers, of whom the most intelligent and resolute so warmly approved of it, that the timid were brought to give their consent, and it was resolved to carry it into execution on the morrow. The intervening night was spent by the pious Father Olmedo in soliciting the favour of heaven for this great enterprise.

A pretext was readily found to justify the act. Cortes had received intelligence of a battle that had been fought between some of the soldiers of the garrison of Villa Rica, and an army of Mexicans under the governor of a province adjacent to the Spanish settlement, and although Cortes really cared little for this occurrence, it served

an admirable purpose in the work he had resolved upon. He proceeded in the morning with five of his officers, and the two interpreters, Donna Marina and Aguilar, to the palace of the emperor, taking care to observe the forms they had hitherto used when desirous of an audience. Others of his soldiers were to come in small parties to the palace prepared for any emergency. Montezuma re. ceived them kindly, but when Cortes upbraided him with causing the attack that had been made upon the garrison at Vera Cruz, as well as with the attempt to destroy him and his army at Cholula, and informed him that he had now come to make him a prisoner, he gave free vent to his rage and astonishment. His rage was impotent against the stern resolution of the Spaniard, and as he turned from one to another of the pitiless faces of the warriors, whose fingers ever and anon clutched the hilts of their swords, he was seized with a fit of terror and trembling, and burst into tears. Without resistance, he caused himself to be borne in a litter to the residence of the Spaniards, publishing to his nobles and subjects that he went on a visit to Cortes, voluntarily, and desiring them to remain quiet.

At the demand of Cortes, the governor who had made the attack on Villa Rica, was sent for with three of his principal officers, and they were tried for the offence and sentenced to death. When they found they were to die, they boldly laid the blame of the transaction upon Montezuma, whom Cortes therefore kept in irons while the execution was performed. By a master-stroke of policy the victims were burned alive, and the materials used for their funeral pile and used in excessive quantities, were arrows, javelins, and other weapons drawn by the emperor's permission from the arsenals of the city, where they had been stored to supply means of defence in times of civic tumult and insurrection.

All this had taken place within ten days after the arrival of the Spaniards in the city, and for more than three months the emperor was kept a prisoner in the Spanish quarters. Here he was treated with the greatest show of respect, Cortes never allowing him to suffer the least indignity except from himself. Whenever he approached him he doffed his casque, and one of his soldiers who had treated him unkindly was only saved from death by the earnest entreaty of the captive sovereign himself. The kindly demeanour of Montezuma, his gentleness, and more than all, his excessive liberality, to all those about him, won the hearts of all the soldiers, and made him a general favourite. He made not the slightest attempt to regain his liberty, but aided Cortes in seizing, by strategy, the persons of the king of Tezcuco, and other princes of the realm, who had entered into conspiracy to free their country and the emperor from the

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foreign yoke. Cortez punished their "rebellion," by confining them in irons.

HE Spaniards did every thing in their power to render his confinement easy to himself, and were particularly careful that nothing of the ceremonies and etiquette formerly observed by his subjects towards him should be omitted. Outside of his own palace his will was absolute law. He was allowed to go into the temple, escorted by a guard of Spaniards, and offi

ciate as of old at the shrine of his gods, his faith in whose divinity could not be shaken by all the logic of both the pious Christian fathers. He listened with deference, it is true, but the conferences on the subject always ended with his declaration that "the God of the Christians was good, but the gods of his own country were the true gods for him." The Spanish general had caused two vessels to be built of sufficient size to transport his whole army across the lake, and when these were finished, he delighted Montezuma and his suite by taking them on a pleasure excursion to the opposite shore of the lake, where the captive king was allowed to hunt in the royal park, as he had been wont to do in happier days.

At one of their first interviews, Montezuma had offered to Cortes to acknowledge formally the supremacy of the Spanish emperor, and he was now called upon to make such an acknowledgment. He made no objections, but assembling all his nobles, he addressed them in a very affecting speech, desiring them to concur in the surrender of the empire to the Spaniards, who, he said, were the race which the great Quetezalcoatl had predicted would come from the rising sun to possess the land. "You have been faithful vassals of mine," said he, "during the many years that I have sat on the throne of my fathers. I now expect that you will show me this last act of obedience by acknowledging the great king beyond the waters to be your lord, also, and that you will pay him tribute in the same manner as you have hitherto done to me. His nobles were greatly asstonished, as well as deeply moved at his address, and the tears which coursed down his cheeks during the interview forced their sympathy and obedience. The emperor and all his nobles the took the oath of allegiance to the Castilian throne, and, though "it was in the regular way of their own business," to quote an old chronicler, "there was not a Spaniard who could look on the spectacle with a dry eye."*

• Prescott, vol. ii. p. 198

Montezuma accompanied the surrender of his kingdom with the gift of an immense treasure, comprising, besides the hoard which the Spaniards had discovered, a considerable amount collected from the tributaries of his empire. He desired it to be sent to Spain as tribute money to King Charles from his vassal Montezuma. The Spanish soldiers, however, regarded it as part of the fruits of their toils and clamoured for its division. Cortes yielded to their desire, and the treasure which amounted in value to about six millions three hundred thousand dollars, according to Prescott's calculation, was divided after his manner. The king's fifth part was first set aside, a fifth of the remainder was assigned to Cortes; after that the debts of the expedition were to be discharged, including the investments of Velasquez, and the expenses of the embassy to Spain, the losses of the expedition were then to be made good, and finally, certain individuals in the army, as the priests, officers, &c., were to receive larger allowances than the rest. By these drafts, each soldier's share was reduced to about fourteen hundred dollars. Many of the soldiers thought this amount so small, in comparison with their expectations, that they refused to accept it, and others speedily got to the end of their share by gaming with cards made out of the heads of drums. Nearly all, however, complained of injustice in the division, and it required all the ability of Cortes to prevent disastrous consequences.

Cortes next demanded of Montezuma that a portion of the great temple of the gods should be given up to him to be converted into a temple for the worship of the true God. Montezuma gave his consent, for he could do no otherwise, and one of the sanctuaries on the top of the temple was purified, and an altar and a crucifix erected in it. The people scarcely needed the instigation of the priests to rouse them to desperation at this proceeding. To have their emperor a prisoner, to give up their kingdom and their treasures, these were galling; but to sit tamely under such an insult to their gods, was too much to ask of them. The priests, with haggard faces, ran through the streets covered with blood, denouncing wo to the people unless the sacrilegious strangers were expelled. Montezuma informed Cortes of this state of feeling, and warned him that he and his men would be made a sacrifice to the offended deities unless they left the country. Already the Spanish quarters were in a state of siege, when, in May, 1520, six months after his arrival in the capital, Cortes received tidings from the coast which gave him greater alarm than even the dangers which surrounded him.

A second expedition had been fitted out by Velasquez, and in trusted to the command of Don Pamfilo de Narvaez, who was to pro ceed immediately to Mexico, depose or decapitate Cortes, and seize