"What will these dogs with me now?" cried Cortes, at whose feet, (for he had dismounted,) the attendants had thrown their burthens, and were proceeding to display their contents. "Doth Montezuma think to appease me for the blood of my brothers? and pay for Spanish lives with robes of cotton and trinkets of gold?—What say the hounds?"
"They say," responded De Morla to his angry general, "that the king welcomes you back again to his dominions, to give him reparation for the slaughter of his people."
"Hah!" exclaimed the leader, fiercely. "Doth he beard me with complaint, when I look for penitence and supplication?"
"In token of his love, and of his assured persuasion that you now return to punish the murderers of his subjects, and then to withdraw your followers from his city for ever," said De Morla, giving his attention less to Cortes than to the lord of Tlatelolco, "he sends you these garments, to protect the bodies of your new friends from the snows of Ithualco, as well as——"
"The slave!" cried Don Hernan, spurning the pack that lay at his foot, and scattering its gaudy textures over the earth: "If he give me no mail to protect my friends from the knives of his assassins, I will trample even upon his false heart, as I do upon his worthless tribute!"
"Shall I translate your excellency's answer word for word?" said De Morla, tranquilly. "If it be left to myself, I should much prefer veiling it in such palatable language, as my limited knowledge will afford."
But the scowling general had already turned away, as if to humble the ambassadors with the strongest evidence of contempt, and to prove the extremity of his displeasure; and it needed no interpretation of words to convince the noble savages of the futileness of their ministry. The lord of Tlatelolco bowed again to the earth, and again kissed his hand, as if in humble resignation, while the retreating figure of Don Hernan vanished under the low door of his dwelling; but the younger envoy, instead of imitating him, drew himself proudly up, and looked after the general with a composure, that changed, as Don Amador thought, to a smile. But if such a mark of satisfaction—for it bore more the character of elation than contempt,—did illuminate the bronzed visage of the prince, it remained not there for an instant. He cast a quiet and grave eye upon the curious cavaliers who surrounded him, and then beckoning his attendants from their packs, he strode, with his companion, composedly away.
"In my mind," said the neophyte, following him with his eye, and rather soliloquizing than addressing himself to any of the neighbouring cavaliers, "there was more of dignity and contempt in the smile of that heathen prince, than in all the rage of my friend Don Hernan."
"Truly, he is a very proper-looking and well-demeanoured knave," said the voice of Duero. "But the general has some deep policy at the bottom of all this anger."
"By my faith, I think so, now for the first time!" exclaimed the neophyte; "for, although unable to see the drift of such a stratagem, I cannot believe that the señor Cortes would adopt a course, that seems to savour so much of injustice, without a very discreet and politic object."