Page:Vol 2 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/104

84 the third vessel, which had escaped him, contained additional treasure, the French pirate returned with three of his ships to watch for her. This time fortune turned against him, for near Cape St Vincent he encountered a Spanish fleet sent in search of him, and after a brief but sharp battle he was captured and conveyed to Spain, there to be condemned to the gallows.

Ill-luck seemed to attend the spoils of New Spain, both in their capture and afterward. The curses of the dying Montezuma and the agonized Quauhtemotzin had clung to them ever since they left the palace vaults of Tenochtitlan. Miserably perished during the Noche Triste most of those who sought to convey it forth, while the Aztecs who recaptured a portion paid the titter penalty during the horrors of the following siege. Strife and trouble arose at the distribution of the remnant after the fall of the city; a gale swept a portion into the lake, together with several of its attendants. Its capture by the French involved the imprisonment of Ávila and the death of several companions, soon to be followed by the ignominious end of the pirates and the capture of Francis himself As for the escaped vessel, the Santa María de la Rábida, she gained Santa Maria Island in a somewhat battered condition, with several wounded persons on board, including Quiñones, who died a few days later. Ribera proceeded thence in a Portuguese caravel to Seville to ask for a convoy, and with this