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'Go then, replied the stern conqueror, 'and prepare your countrymen for death. Their last moment is come. Still, however, he postponed the attack for several hours; but the troops were impatient at the delay, and a rumour spread that Guatemozin was preparing to escape by the lake.
Other appropriate monuments ornament the several circles, including an equestrian statue of Charles IV. of colossal size; thirty tons of metal was used in the casting, and, if not the largest, it is the second largest that has ever been cast. Still another represents Guatemozin, the last of the Indian emperors.
Xochimilco was but four leagues from the capital, and at the first tidings of the arrival of the Spaniards, Guatemozin had mustered a strong force and marched to its relief.
Cortés, well satisfied, withdrew his force, and next morning presented himself at the appointed place in the great square, where a stone platform had been spread with mats and carpets and a banquet made ready. But after all Guatemozin, instead of coming himself, sent his nobles.
Montezuma died a miserable death in the hands of Cortez; while Guatemozin, the last of the Aztec emperors, was ignominiously treated, tortured, and afterwards hanged by the Spanish conqueror.
Of this opera I have been privileged to see the complete piano score, and much of the orchestral. Frederic Grant Gleason In the first act Guatemozin, who has been exiled by Montezuma, appears disguised as an ancient minstrel and sings prophetically of the coming of a god of peace and love to supplant the terrible idol that demands human sacrifice.
Cortés, therefore, to his eternal disgrace, caused Guatemozin to be tortured; but fire and cord could not wring the secret of the treasure from this illustrious prince. In later days Cortés hanged Guatemozin, on pretence of a conspiracy.
I know not if there be invisible threads by which the Present is attached to the distant Past, making the descendant suffer even for a distant ancestor, but I cannot forget that Maximilian was derived from that very family of Charles the Fifth, whose conquering general, Cortes, stretched the Indian Guatemozin upon a bed of fire, and afterwards executed him on a tree.
The death of Maximilian was tardy retribution for the death of Guatemozin. And thus in this world is wrong avenged, sometimes after many generations. The fall of the French Emperor is an illustration of that same retribution which is so constant. While he yet lives, judgment has begun.
Meanwhile the construction of the ships went forward prosperously, and by Christmas, in the year 1520, there was no longer any reason to delay the march to Mexico. While all these preparations were being made, some changes had taken place among the Aztecs. Cuitlahua had suddenly died after reigning four months, and Guatemozin his nephew had been chosen in his stead.
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