Page:Romance of History, Mexico.djvu/173

 Only a limited number of Aztecs were admitted at one time, and day and night a guard kept watch at the gates and also in the emperor's antechamber. So wearisome even to the tireless Spaniards became this ceaseless watching, that a soldier at Montezuma's door exclaimed bitterly one day, "Better this dog of a king should die than that we should wear out our lives in this manner!" The man was punished, but the incident increased the emperor's anxiety to escape from his veiled bondage. And now arrived Quauhpopoca from the coast accompanied by his son and fifteen nobles, in obedience to the messenger with the royal signet. Humbly clad in nequen the chieftain entered the presence of the emperor, bowing to the ground with the usual salutation, "Lord, my lord, great lord!" He was received with haughty displeasure, and told that as his offence had been against the Spaniards, the Spanish general should judge him. Montezuma hoped by this act to propitiate his gaolers and win his freedom.

With great dignity the chieftain bore himself before his alien judge, confessing at once that he had plotted to overthrow the white strangers in Vera Cruz, since he considered them to be the enemies of his country. In grim silence Cortés listened, and then passed his ghastly sentence. The cacique with his son and the fifteen nobles were to be immediately burnt alive in front of the palace. With Montezuma's permission the arsenals of the great temple were despoiled, and the arms and missiles piled high in the courtyard of the Old 147