Page:Romance of History, Mexico.djvu/109

 command, built booths of branches near the Spanish camp, and passed their time in cooking tempting dishes for Cortés and his officers.

On the eighth day appeared Tendile himself with two stately Aztec nobles and a numerous train of attendants. A hundred slaves bore the multitude of gifts sent by their imperial master. To the general's large tent they made their way, and the slaves waving their censers filled the air with incense, while the nobles did reverence in Aztec fashion. Then on brightly coloured mats before the Spaniards' dazzled eyes they spread glittering shields, embossed helmets, collars, bracelets, sandals, all of purest gold; crests and head-dresses of gorgeous feathers wrought with gold and silver thread and adorned with precious stones; curtains, coverlets, and robes of finest cotton interwoven with the soft fur of rabbits, dyed in rich colours and embroidered with devices of birds and flowers.

Cunningly fashioned were the ornaments inwrought and cast gold and silver, representing birds and beasts with jewelled eyes and movable wings and limbs. Most beautiful, perhaps, of all these truly royal gifts were the mantles of that exquisite feather work peculiar to the Mexican people. From the plumage of countless parrots, whose haunt was in the forests, came the bold and brilliant shades, while the humming-birds who lived in the honeysuckle bowers of Mexico supplied the softer and more delicate tones. True artists were the feather-workers, and held in high esteem.

A silver moon, a golden sun, the size of a carriage 85