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Now some of his counsellors approached him to console him, but he thrust them aside, saying: 'Let me mourn the doom that was foretold is fallen upon the children of Anahuac. The children of Quetzal muster on our shores and slay my people. Let me mourn, I say. At that moment another messenger came from the palace, having grief written on his face. 'Speak, said Montezuma.
When the Spaniards were first admitted to an audience with Montezuma, he wore no other ornament on his head than a panache of plumes of royal green. A person without experience, either in position, behavior, or use of anything, is termed green, and laughed at.
This great mine was the Laurium of Venus. The display of gold in the vaults connected with it exceeded a hundredfold all that the most imaginative historian has ever written of the treasures of Montezuma and Atahualpa.
Montezuma soon appeared, borne upon the shoulders of his favourites in a kind of litter adorned with gold and feathers, while a magnificent canopy protected him from the rays of the sun. As he advanced the Indians prostrated themselves before him, with their heads downwards, as though unworthy even to look at their monarch.
Tenhtlile then ordered his slaves to bring forward the present for the Spanish general. It consisted of ten loads of fine cotton, several mantles of gorgeous feather-work, and a wicker basket of golden ornaments. Cortés received it with due acknowledgments, and in his turn ordered the presents for Montezuma to be brought forward.
He is the first to land, the last to leave, and to name the places where he has seen service well, one of them wrote a song once. "From the hills of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli," it began. But he has seen more than Mexico or the Mediterranean since. He could now say: "From the hills of Montezuma to the gates of old Peking He has heard the shrapnel bursting, he has heard the Mauser's ping!
Montezuma was therefore an opportunist, like Cortes, but there was a vast difference between them. Montezuma was a man of great ability, undoubtedly, or he never could have been chosen by the hereditary electors to the position he occupied, and he could never have held it if he had not been.
Undoubtedly such an action was the basest of treachery, but Cortes had put himself in such a position that the nakedness of such an action did not prevail with him for a moment. He quieted his conscience with the old reasoning that Montezuma was a heathen, and that oaths to him were by no means binding. Whether he quieted his conscience or not, something was necessary.
The advice was in accordance with his own feelings and temperament; but the extreme reverence with which the Aztecs regarded their emperor paralyzed him. "We shall see," he said, gloomily. "In a short time we shall know why Montezuma thus tamely suhmitted to be made a prisoner. He may have some motives which we cannot fathom. I cannot believe him to be a coward.
In the second act, Hernando Cortez appears, with soldiers. While the costumes of the indians were gay, and more or less attractive, those of these European warriors were ludicrously mongrel and unbecoming. The new-comers demanded that Montezuma acknowledge the authority of the King of Spain and the cross of Christ. Conversations, demands, replies, tableaus, sword-dances, etc., ensued.
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