Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 1.djvu/92





capital had no sooner fallen and the ruins been searched in vain for the abundant treasures which the conquerors imagined were hoarded by the Aztecs, than murmurs of discontent broke forth in the Spanish camp against Cortéz for his supposed concealment of the plunder. There was a mingled sentiment of distrust both of the conqueror and Guatemozin; and, at last, the querulousness and taunts rose to such an offensive height, that it was resolved to apply the torture to the dethroned prince in order to wrest from him the secret hiding place of his ancestral wealth. We blush to record that Cortéz consented to this iniquity, but it was probably owing to an avaricious and mutinous spirit in his ranks which he was unable at the moment to control. The same Indian stoicism that characterised the unfortunate prince during the war, still nerved him in his hours of abject disaster. He bore the pangs without quivering or complaint and without revealing any thing that could gratify the Spanish lust of gold, save that vast quantities of the precious metal had been thrown into the lake,—from which but little was ultimately recovered even by the most expert divers.

The news of the fall of Mexico was soon spread from sea to sea, and couriers were despatched by distant tribes and princes to ascertain the truth of the prodigious disaster. The independent kingdom of Michoacan, lying between the vale of Anahuac or Mexico and the Pacific, was one of the first to send its envoys,