Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/204

196 "You ought not to walk up stairs," urged the chief; "you will be tired."

"Tut, tut!" exclaimed Cortez; "a Spaniard is never tired ;" and, suiting the action to the word, he sprang up the steps, followed by his stalwart soldiers, leaving the astonished Montezuma far behind in the arms of his carriers.

The markets were inspected by the Spaniards, who drove sharp bargains with the fruit-sellers and the mechanics. They visited the parks, the museum, the botanical gardens, aviaries and menageries, and fished and rowed on lake and canal. Six days thus passed pleasantly away without any disturbance between the Spaniards and their entertainers. Even the Tlascalans, usually so defiant and suspicious, seemed to forget, as they walked the streets gazing on the splendors of the Aztec capital, the vows taken in infancy never to be at peace with their hated neighbors. But such a state of things could not be expected to last long. As Cortez remarked in his letter to the king about that time, "we Spaniards are somewhat troublesome and difficult to please." He was thinking, perhaps, of the strain which would soon be put upon Montezuma's loyalty to his new liege across the sea. Cortez intended to make of Mexico a Spanish city, to gain and to keep its treasure, to colonize the country, to convert the people and to become its princely ruler under the king and the pope of Rome.

Cortez soon decided that his first step must be to get possession of Montezuma and hold him as a hostage while he was teaching the people to submit to their foreign rulers. He supposed that the chief was the hereditary sovereign of Anahuac, and that while he could hold him he would have control of the government. He had the more reason