Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/158

150 Spaniards this tribe had been beaten in battle by the Aztecs, and the heavy tribute exacted from them by the victors was a great grievance. Their distress at this particular time was very evident. They spoke bitterly of children who had just been claimed for sacrifice on Aztec altars, and seemed very anxious to throw off the intolerable burdens which had been laid upon them. Would these powerful white men come to their own country and become their allies?

Nothing could have pleased the wily Spaniard better than such a proposal. He had supposed that the Aztecs were a united people, and that Montezuma, seated on an imperial throne, had only to lift his sceptre for an obedient nation to prostrate itself before him. But here, ripe for revolt, was a tributary people that he could by skillful management separate from Mexico and use as the thin edge of the wedge which would finally disrupt the Aztec empire.