Page:Romance of History, Mexico.djvu/78

 the cannons and the deadly balls crashing into sand-hills and forest turned their amazement to secret terror. With all the cunning of his craft the painter meanwhile essayed to depict for Montezuma these dread beings at the portals of his empire and their "water-houses" at anchor in the bay.

"If your emperor has any gold," said Cortés to the governor, who now with much ceremony took his leave, "ask him to send some to me, for I and my companions have a complaint, a disease of the heart, which is cured by gold."

Two hundred miles from the coast was the city of the Mexican emperor, and yet Tendile promised that his royal master would receive the message of the strangers in less than twenty-four hours. As there were no horses in Mexico news was carried every inch of the way by swift couriers trained to run from childhood. A chain of post-houses, six miles apart, connected the capital with the coast, and as the stages were so short each courier could bear the message onward at full speed, while in every hamlet his gay or sombre garb announced the tenor of his news. 56