Page:Vol 2 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/64

44 the face of Anáhuac. At this juncture the spirit of his dead sister is said to have appeared and warned hin against resisting the God-sent strangers, pointing in support of her words to a bright figure in the sky, representing a young Castilian soldier with drawn sword. Several other omens were observed, sufficiently portentous to prevail on the council to join the king in rejecting the Aztec alliance.

Whether this persuasion availed or not, certain it is that another was at hand which could hardly have been disregarded. When Zwanga's envoys reached Mexico they found it stricken desolate under the ravages of the small-pox, which had carried off the emperor himself. Unable to achieve anything, they hastened back in fear, only to bring with them the germ of the terrible scourge from which they were flying; and desolation found another field. Among the vast number of dead was Zwanga. The sceptre was seized by his eldest son Tangaxoan II., whose vacillating character was wholly unfit to cope with the exigencies of so critical a period. His first act, the assassination of his brothers on a flimsy charge of conspiracy, in order to secure the throne, served but to bring odium upon himself and defeat the proposed object by sowing the seeds of disloyalty. Again came envoys from Mexico to urge alliance, but before the king could recover from the pressure of other affairs, or bring his mind to a determination, the crushing intelligence of the fall of Mexico solved all doubt.

Among the men sent forth by Cortés to gather information about the countries adjoining his conquest, and to open the path for invasion, was a soldier named Parrillas, a good talker, and full of fun, who had become a favorite among the natives, and was rapidly acquiring their language. Accompanied by some of them, for the purpose of foraging, he had