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Caesar Borgia makes himself master of Pesaro, Rimini, and Faenza; he is guilty of numerous atrocities. Columbus on his fourth and last voyage reaches the isthmus of Panama. Caesar Borgia fails in his evil course. Montezuma elected to the military leadership of the Aztecs. In Naples the French and Spanish quarrel and commence hostilities.
The Aztecs disheartened at the manner in which all the defenses on which they relied had been captured by the Spaniards, and by their presence in the heart of the city for some time desisted from their efforts; but they were roused to fury, as a body of Spaniards rushed up the winding terraces to the summit of the great temple, and hurled the priests from its summit.
The Aztecs, after a series of migrations and wars, settled themselves in 1326 in the valley of Mexico, where they built their capital Tenochtitlan.
Should I desert Otomie and escape to the Spaniards if that were possible, taking my chance of death at the hands of de Garcia? Or should I stay among the Aztecs if they would give me shelter, and wed Otomie? There was a third choice, indeed, to stay with them and leave Otomie alone, though it would be difficult to do this and keep my honour.
The Spaniards, after the picturesque conquest of the luckless Aztecs, were eagerly searching for new fields of profitable battle, and then they dreamed of finding among the mysteries of the alluring northland, stretching so far away into the Unknown, a repetition of towns as populous, as wealthy in pure gold, as those of the valley of Mexico whose despoiled treasures had fired the cupidity of Europe and had crammed the strong boxes of the Spanish king.
The glare of the flames was that of a lurid day, and by it I could see the white men retreating to their quarters, pursued by thousands of Aztecs, who hung upon their flanks, shooting at them with stones and arrows. Now I dropped down from the window place and began to think as to what I should do, for again my mind was wavering.
The fathers of the present mixed-breed population of Mexico tell us that the Aztecs offered human sacrifices, and feasted upon human flesh. They hope, by dwelling upon the enormities of the Indians, to excuse their own still more detestable crimes. For three centuries their stories were uncontradicted, and they have been received as historical verities.
Can he have reached the Aztecs, and been regarded as a god? In this place he met with a great ship bound for the Havana, well provided, with twenty great guns and threescore and ten men, passengers and mariners. This ship he assaulted, but found strongly defended by them that were on board.
The Duke of Medina Celi, its present owner, is a lineal scion of the old piratical crew. The mansion is filled with the fruits of many a foray. There are plunder from Naples, where one ancestor was Viceroy, and treasures from the temples of the Aztecs and the Incas, where two other ancestors ruled. Every coping stone and pillar cost some mariner of the Tarifa Straits a pot of money.
Thus, in blood and treachery, ended the career of one of the ablest of the bold adventurers of Spain. About a hundred years before the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs, there reigned over the kingdom of Tezcuco, in the valley of Mexico, a monarch whose history is as interesting and romantic as any that can be found in the annals of Europe.
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