De Vaca and his three friends returned to Spain as speedily as possible, where they were received as heroes of adventure, whose romantic story passed from place to place, and instead of discouraging others, only made them the more eager to visit those strange lands themselves, for every one felt sure that if he had been in De Vaca's place he would surely have discovered the gold and silver and precious stones that were supposed to be hidden away in the everglades of Florida, or in the mountains of Apalachen, or in the rivers and valleys of Mexico.
[CHAPTER XI.]
HERNANDO CORTEZ AND THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO.
High on the table-land of Mexico there was once a beautiful city which was built partly around the shores of a lake and partly on islands within the lake. It had broad streets and fine buildings, and its temples were among the most beautiful in the world, the principal one, that which was devoted to the worship of the sun, being ornamented with gold and silver and precious stones; here and there were great public squares around which splendid temples were built, and in the centre of the city in one of these great squares stood the temple of the god of war. The people who lived in this city were Aztecs, a tribe of Indians very different from those of the Atlantic coast. They worshipped the sun and the moon, and, above all, they worshipped the terrible god of war, in whose honor they burned the bodies of the enemies they captured in battle. The temples were attended by priests, who were held in great honor by the people, and in every temple there were little boys who were being trained to the priesthood. On great festival days the priests and boys and all the people would form a grand procession and march all around the city, singing and playing on instruments. The lake on which the city was built was one of the finest in the world, and the Aztecs were fond of building floating gardens on its waters; these gardens were very beautiful, with flowers of all kinds, and vegetables were also cultivated in them. The palaces of the king and nobles were built of stone and of great size, and very elegant, being ornamented sometimes with gold and silver. The Aztecs were a very powerful people, and all the nations around them were afraid of them and acknowledged the Aztec king as theirs; and everywhere from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico were great roads leading from the city down to the coasts, so that the king could send messages at any time from one part of his kingdom to another; all over the country outside the city were great fields, where cotton, corn, wheat, sugar, coffee, and other things were raised. The Aztecs did not dress in skins, as did the Indians farther north, but they wove cotton into cloth and made garments of that. They also had a written language and wrote their history down in books. The name of the king was Montezuma, and all his people loved and worshipped him as a god, and when he looked over the city and saw the turrets and spires of the palaces and temples glittering in the sunlight, and the floating gardens, filling the lakes with beauty and fragrance, and the fields rich with harvest, and the green forests, stretching away to the base of the great volcano whose snowy peak shone in the golden light of the sun, he felt that his was, indeed, a great and fair kingdom, beautiful and strong and happy.
But the riches of this great city had been heard of across the sea, and the Spaniards, as ever eager for gold, resolved to make its wealth their own. So an army was sent from Cuba to conquer Mexico, and Hernando Cortez was made its leader. Cortez was a brave soldier, but a cruel and treacherous man. In the year 1519 he landed his troops at Tabasco on the southern coast of Mexico; he found the natives prepared for war, but they were soon glad to fly from the Spaniards, leaving many of their number killed. Cortez then went on to Vera Cruz, where Montezuma had sent messengers to meet him; these messengers brought with them magnificent presents of gold and jewels which they gave to the Spaniards, at the same time trying to persuade them to go away from their country. But Cortez would not go away; he said he was going to the City of Mexico to see Montezuma himself, as the King of Spain had ordered him to do, and for fear his soldiers would not go with him, he burned all his ships so they could not go back to Cuba if they wanted to.
THE MESSENGERS OF MONTEZUMA.
The Aztecs returned to Montezuma and told him that the Spaniards were on their way to his city. Montezuma did not know what to do; for although he was a good and kind king, he was not a great soldier. He sent other messengers and more presents, and commanded Cortez to go back, but Cortez pressed on. Now among the Aztecs there was a tradition that, hundreds of years before, their country had been visited by a glorious stranger from the East, a child of the sun, who had taught them how to till the ground, and all the arts of peace and war; and he lived with them many years, and they loved him and worshipped him as a god, and the stranger was very beautiful to look upon, with hair like the sunlight and eyes as bright as the stars, and his skin was as white as the snow which glistened on the tops of the volcanoes. And one day he called the Indians around him and told them that he must go away forever, but that some time in the years to come a race would come from the East, children of the sun like himself, and that they would demand the Aztec Kingdom for their own, and that it would do no good for the Indians to fight these strangers, for they were the children of the sun and could conquer all before them; and so saying, the stranger from the East vanished from their sight, and they saw him no more, though they mourned for him many days; for he had gone into the mysterious West, whence the sun goes at night, for all things that come from the East find a home at last in the land of the sunsetting, but save the sun himself, nothing ever comes back from that land, but all things remain forever hidden by the shadows which lie on its borders.
And so when Montezuma heard that the Spaniards, who were fair-skinned and light, compared with the Indians, were resolved to come on to his city, he thought that perhaps they might be the children of the sun, and if so, it would be of no use to try and repel them; and when at last Cortez came up to the city, he went out to meet him and gave him a courteous welcome.