Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 1.djvu/39

Rh and request them to return to their homes over the sea with these proofs of his perfect friendship.

It may well be supposed that this naïve system of diplomacy could have but little effect on men who were bent on improving their fortunes, and whose rapacity was only stimulated by the evidences of unbounded wealth which the simple-minded king had so lavishly bestowed on them. Montezuma was the dupe of his own credulity, and only inflamed, by the very means he imagined would assuage the avarice or ambition of his Spanish visitors. Nor was Cortéz less resolved than his companions. Accordingly he made another pacific effort, by means of additional presents and a gentle message, to change the resolution of the Indian emperor. Still the Aztec sovereign was obstinate in his refusal of a personal interview, although he sent fresh gifts by the persons who bore to the Spaniards his polite but firm and peremptory denial.

Cortéz could hardly conceal his disappointment at this second rebuff; but, as the vesper bell tolled, whilst the ambassadors were in his presence, he threw himself on his knees with his soldiers, and, after a prayer, Father Olmedo expounded to the Aztec chiefs, by his interpreters, the doctrines of Christianity, and putting into their hands an image of the Virgin and Saviour, he exhorted them to abandon their hideous idolatry, and to place these milder emblems of faith and hope on the altars of their bloody gods. That very night the Indians abandoned the Spanish camp and the neighborhood, leaving the adventurers without the copious supplies of food that hitherto had been bountifully furnished. Cortéz, nevertheless, was undismayed by these menacing symptoms, and exclaimed to his hardy followers: "It shall yet go hard, but we will one day pay this powerful prince a visit in his gorgeous capital!"