Page:Romance of History, Mexico.djvu/166

 wall had been newly plastered over. Pulling down the plaster, they found a door concealed beneath. It was quick work to force it open, and there before their dazzled eyes lay masses of gold, silver, jewels, and costly fabrics! It was Montezuma's treasure-room of which they had heard vague rumours. "I was a young man," says Bernal Diaz, "and it seemed to me as if all the riches of the world were in that room!" But Cortés, who was not yet prepared to risk offending the emperor, ordered the door to be closed up once more, and forbade the soldiers to speak of their discovery. 140