Page:The Mastering of Mexico.djvu/228

192 suit the monarch, and Cortes sent Cacamatzin word that we wished to have him for a friend, but if he began war it would mean his death. He was a young hotbrain, however, this Cacamatzin, and others of the same sort strengthened him in his opinions, and he sent haughty answers to all the warnings our captain offered. At length, when his insolence had become too gross for endurance, when Montezuma had sent trustworthy messengers begging Cacamatzin to come and confer with him, saying the abiding in our quarters lay wholly with himself and Malinche had twice told him to return to his own palace, but he had refused to go because the papas had said he must stay with us, if he would not be a dead man—and when Cacamatzin had again summoned his caciques and In a haughty and traitorous speech had assured them that he would kill us all within four days, and his uncle, Montezuma, had a rabbit's heart, otherwise he would have attacked us as we were coming down the mountains, as he had advised him doing—and after many plans and promises of what he, Cacamatzin, would do for their enriching when he should get the lordship of Mexico—and after the caciques had refused to join him in his traitorous design, and he had sent word to Montezuma that he might have spared himself asking him, Cacamatzin, to make friends with those who had done the monarch dishonor, possible only because we were