Page:The Mastering of Mexico.djvu/370

330 hundred dollars. But the value was nothing to what report said the monarch had thrown into the lake.

Now our officers and men considered thoroughly when they saw how hardly worth accepting would be each man's share, and therefore Padre de Olmedo, Alvarado and others proposed to Cortes that the whole was so little, it should be divided among the maimed—the lame, the blind or one-eyed, the deaf, and those who had pains in their bodies or who had been burned by powder—that all the gold should be given to such, and the rest of us who were in comfortable health should agree that that was good use of it. After considerable thought, they proposed this to Cortes, believing they could induce him to add to the shares; for the suspicion was rife, as I said, that he had hidden away great part of Guatemoc's treasure. Cortes answered that he would try and satisfy us all. Officers and men then said they would like to know how much would be each allotment, and it was found that to every horseman eighty dollars, to a crossbowman, musketeer and shield-bearer, fifty or sixty dollars. None of the men would accept these pittances and they began to throw out bitter words against Cortes. The royal treasurer excused himself by answering he had done the best he could, for Cortes had taken for himself a portion equal to the king's, and had besides claimed repayment for the horses that had died; moreover, many pieces of