Little more than a week elapsed. In that time the swift native carriers had traversed and re-traversed the steep and rugged road from the coast to the valley of Anahuac, a distance of about two hundred miles each way. The substance of their message from Montezuma was "Come not hither; the road is long and dangerous; return to your country with our greetings to your great King." A magnificent present accompanied this somewhat chilling reply—articles of gold and silver, beautifully wrought, among them a huge gold plate, and one of silver, circular in form and "as large as carriage-wheels," twenty-eight spans in circumference, representing respectively the images of the sun and the moon and engraved with figures of animals, doubtless indicative of some chronological symbol—the value of the gold wheel was afterwards estimated at more than £50,000—other articles of clothing and armour, including a number of beautiful golden shields inlaid and decorated, necklaces of rubies and pearls, and a quantity of the intricate and beautiful feather-work.
What was the result of all this, upon the Spaniards—this wealth of treasure and this unencouraging greeting? "Go back again," was the substance of Cortes's reply to the ambassadors of Montezuma; "tell your monarch the mountain road and its dangers do not appal us—we who have sailed two thousand leagues of troubled ocean to arrive here—and we cannot return to our great sovereign without having personally greeted yours." Again the Spaniards waited the messengers' return, weary of the wind- and sand-swept plains of Vera Cruz; assailed by the calenturas ever encountered upon the American coasts, the bilious malarial disorders which Nature has made the scourge of the tropics, and which the science of modern man has only just begun to investigate. Again the messengers—within ten days—returned. Stripped of its diplomatic covering of ceremony and further presents, the Aztec Emperor's reply may be condensed as "Get thee hence!" And, as if to bear out some royal mandate, the natives disappeared from the vicinity, the supplies were cut off, leaving the Spaniards halting upon this debatable ground, in chagrin and indecision.
But not for long. The stern design of the Spaniards had been forced, and was growing. "I vowed to your Royal Highness that I would have Montezuma prisoner, or dead, or subject to your Majesty," wrote Cortes to Carlos V. of Spain, from Vera Cruz; and "Think you we were such Spaniards as to lie there idly?" wrote Bernal Diaz, the soldier-penman, afterwards. Yet there was some disaffection in the camp, a portion of the men, wearied of inaction and fearful of dangers, desiring to return to Cuba. Here Cortes's diplomacy came to the rescue. "On board, all of you!" he exclaimed. "Back to Cuba and its Governor, and see what happens!" The threat and sneer had the effect he expected. Scarcely a man would return, but on the contrary they clamoured for the establishment of a colony and for a march on Montezuma and his capital, whilst the few who remained disaffected were clapped in irons, among them the hidalgo Velasquez, a relative of the Governor of Cuba.
And now it was that the key to the situation was put into the hands of Cortes. An embassy from a semi-civilised, powerful nation to the north, upon the gulf-shores—the Totonacs, of Cempoalla, as they announced themselves—suddenly arrived in the colony of the Christians. They brought an invitation from their chief for the Spaniards to visit him, with the information—and here was the circumstance which should make conquest possible—that the Totonacs were weary of the Aztec yoke, and yearned for independence. "Ha!" thought Cortes and his hidalgo associates, "they are delivered into our hands! They are divided, and so they will fall." Father Olmedo, the wise and pious confessor of the forces, to whose prudence the security of the Spaniards owed much, and who was the representative of the great Church which became so potent in those lands, blessed his comrades' conclaves, and celebrated solemn Masses. Indeed, every move of the Spaniards was accomplished under such auspices, and was always referred by Cortes to the influence of the desire to carry the Cross of Christ and all it embodied, to those heathen peoples; and in a spirited address to the soldiers he declared that "without this motive their expedition was but one of oppression and robbery." The true proportions of piety and hypocrisy contained in these expressions and acts must be left to the knowledge of human nature of the reader. Suffice to say that the Spaniards did, to a large extent, look upon themselves as Crusaders, and that a militant religious fervour animated them, in conjunction with a spirit of avarice and cruelty.
And so they marched on Cempoalla, along the sandy shores of the gulf, passing through villages, with temples devoted to the abominable sacrificial rites which they had seen in Yucatan. Thence they encountered the fringe of the tropical forests, and at length entered the strange town of Cempoalla, with its numerous inhabitants, and streets, and houses, and excellent surrounding cultivation. Here they remained some days, the Spaniards delighted with the fertile region and the hospitable natives. The great Cacique had received them in his residence—a building of stone upon a pyramid, after the fashion of the structures of that country, and, the fair Marina interpreting, Cortes stated his mission—"to redress abuses and punish oppressors, and to establish the true faith." The substance of the chief's reply was that, though weary of the oppressive yoke of the Aztecs: Montezuma was a terrible monarch, who could pour down his warriors upon them. But Cortes gathered encouragement from his attitude, and in the meantime a juncture had been effected with the ships upon the coast a few leagues distant, at a port discovered by Montejo. Further deliberations took place during the ensuing days, when a momentous event occurred in the arrival of special emissaries from Montezuma to the Cacique, setting forth the anger of the Emperor, and demanding instant reparation and tribute for the disloyalty of the Totonacs in having entertained the invaders. The fearful and hesitating Totonacs—it was but natural—would have appeased their anger; but under the instigation of Cortes these Aztec tax-collectors were seized and imprisoned. Characteristic of the Spaniard of those days was the act of double-dealing then performed by Cortes. He secretly released the prisoners at night, soothed their feelings, sent them on board a ship, and bid them report his goodwill to Montezuma!
The Totonacs were now too deeply compromised to do aught but become the sworn allies of the Spaniards. The cherished dream of the return of Quetzalcoatl had not been fulfilled, but here were these valiant strangers, who had defied the omnipotent Montezuma! The Spaniards then established a colony upon the coast near at hand, aided by the natives, and a town soon arose which was a centre of operations and general point of distribution for the subsequent operations. Engaged upon the work was Cortes, when new emissaries arrived from the outraged Montezuma. The Totonacs were only to be spared out of deference for the white men who had liberated the tax-collectors! Montezuma was debating much within himself and with his advisers at this time. "Surely these terrible white strangers, who had come out of the East, were the long-expected Quetzalcoatl and his people? It was necessary to placate or temporise with them, for what destiny had written concerning the passing of his empire must come to pass." So had pondered the great Aztec chief, and it was this fear of destiny which had dictated his attitude, vacillating as it was, towards the strangers. But the emissaries returned to the lord of Anahuac with the same message as before—that the white men would visit him in person.
Presents of wives—the soft, pretty Indian damsels, daughters of the principal chiefs—were made to Cortes and his officers by the Cacique, in gratitude for assistance against a neighbouring tribe, which the Spaniards rendered. They must, however, be baptized first, said Cortes, and the opportunity was taken to enforce the Christian religion upon their allies. Protests and menace followed, but the idols of Cempoalla were torn from their pyramid sanctuaries and hurled to the ground; the foul sacrificial altars cleansed; the image of the Virgin installed there; and a solemn Mass celebrated by Father Olmedo.
Other stirring events crowded rapidly on. A swift ship was despatched to Spain with the wheel of gold; the beautiful feather-work, and the other rare presents of the Aztecs, all given over by the Spaniards as a royal gift to the young Spanish king; together with a voluminous epistle. This was sent with the design of forestalling the machinations of Velasquez; and though the vessel touched at Cuba, it escaped detention, and safely arrived in Spain. But meantime disaffection arose in the new colony, and a conspiracy was formed to seize a vessel and escape to Cuba, by some of the Spaniards who were discontented and fearful of the future. The plot was discovered and the authors seized and executed, and a dramatic sequel to this conspiracy came about. Cortes and some of his advisers resolved to prevent the recurrence of any further danger of this nature; to put it out of the power of any to desert; to place the knowledge of the inevitable before his troops, that the conquest must be undertaken or death found in the attempt. He sank his ships! Yes; the brigantines which had borne them thither, and were their only means of retreat from those savage shores, were dismantled and destroyed.
And now the Spaniards resolutely turn their faces to the mountains. Threats and entreaties are stilled; the colony is established, the base secured, the ships are sunk, save that single white-winged caravel far over the waters of the gulf, prow to the shores of Spain. The Mass is said, the books are closed. "Forward! my comrades," said Cortes; "before us lies a mountain road; and adventure, gold, and glory!"
The traveller of to-day, as he traverses by rail the desert coast zone of the Mexican littoral, and ascends the steep slopes of the eastern Cordillera of the Sierra Madre, to gain access to the Great Plateau or Valley of Mexico beyond it, reposing amid the cushions of his Pullman car, will neither endure the fatigue which the Conquistadores suffered nor be assailed, night and day, with the menace of savage foes on every hand. But the grand and varied setting still remains: the strange and beautiful fairyland of Nature's rapid transformation scenes, the changing landscape and successive climates of this remarkable region. The sandy wastes give place to tropical forests and fertile valleys, with their bright accompaniment of profuse flower- and bird-life. These, in turn, disappear from the changing panorama, and the traveller reaches the appalling escarpments of the Mexican Andes, looking down from time to time from dizzy ridges, where the ascending steel lines of the railroad spiral has brought him, to where distant fertile vales lie in the glimmering haze, thousands of feet below. And then the scene changes, and the dark rocky ribs and bleak plateau show that the summit is reached, ten thousand feet above the level of the ocean's ebb and flow.