Page:The Mastering of Mexico.djvu/240

204 the great heap of gold in slabs, plates and dust, and when he finally found his share a mere hundred dollars, he fairly fell ill in thinking about it. Seeing him one day so low-spirited, one of his friends asked him what caused his heavy grief and sighs. "How the devil can I be otherwise?" answered Cardenas, "when I see the gold we earned with such hardships get into Cortes' hands, with his fifths, and his money for a horse that died, and the ships of Diego Velasquez, and other such tricks, while my wife and children are dying for want of food? I might have sent them a little help when our agents went to Spain, but we put in their hands all we at that time had gathered." "What gold are you speaking of?" asked his friend. "Why, that which our agents took to Spain," returned Cardenas. "If Cortes would give me my share of what is due me, my wife and children could live on it and have to spare. But Cortes makes us sign how we should send to the king, and then he sends six thousand dollars to his father, while I and other poor men fight night and day at Tabasco and Tlaxcala and Cholula, and now live with death all the time before our eyes. Cortes acts as if he were king himself, and carries off his fifths, while we remain poverty-stricken and all protest is vain." In this strain he ran on, saying we did not want too many kings, only our own. "You make yourself bitter with thoughts that avail you