Page:The Story of Mexico.djvu/83

Rh band which gained in size and strength, until it seemed safe to attack the regular forces of Maxtla. In the battle which took place the tyrant was routed, and the true prince triumphant. As soon as this was known all the chiefs flocked to do him homage, and he entered his capital in triumph, crossing to the sound of military music the spot where he had passed an evening under a drum, and entering by the royal gates the palace he had left through a water-pipe. Horses were not known in Anahuac until after the advent of the Conquistadores. The young victor was borne in a sort of palanquin by four of the chief nobles of the kingdom.

Thus did Nezahualcoyotl return to the throne of his fathers. The Mexicans, who had helped his former enemies to overthrow the rule of his father, now joined forces with him, abandoning without hesitation Maxtla, whose oppression and exaction made him an uncomfortable ally. A league of the other neighboring tribes, combining with the Mexicans, under the lead of the true prince of Texcuco, utterly routed the forces of Maxtla, and this tyrant who himself assassinated the father was slain by the hand of the son.

Maxtla was killed in 1428. The usurpation of the throne of the Chichimecs by Tezozomoc first, and afterwards by Maxtla, his son, had lasted ten years. By this event the kingdom of Atzcapotzalco came to an end, having lasted not more than two hundred and sixty years.

The kingdom which Nezahualcoyotl regained from the usurpers, whose kings traced their lineage