Page:Vol 2 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/44

24 subtle. In their hands he became a tool, whose devotion became stamped as obsequiousness, whose patriotic efforts assumed a traitorous guise, and whose grand plans turned into hateful plottings. Bitter irony of fate!

While investing him with the sovereignty of Acolhuacan, although without the title of king, Cortés also conferred the perpetual grant, for himself and descendants, of three districts, among them Otumba and Tziauhcohuac, each with about thirty-three villages. This concession served only to open the eyes of Ixtlilxochitl to the intention of Cortés with regard to Tezcuco, whose prince was evidently to bear the name only of ruler. His important services to the Spaniards, which he had estimated as indispensable, were thus to be rewarded: by the shadow of the substantial power which he could so many times have acquired for himself, and worse than this, by the insulting grant of a small portion of what he had all this time enjoyed as his own. And this grant was conferred by men to whom he had dispensed so many favors, in treasures, vassals, and deeds, and whom he had saved from destruction, as he flattered himself, by tendering his alliance when inaction alone would have procured him untold favors from the Aztecs. The thought was humiliating. Forgetting his usual deference, the prince ventured to observe that what had