"Glory is all very well," said Juan de Saavedra to Pedro de Alvarado as
the squadron left the island of Cozumel, "but my familiar spirit tells
me that there is gold somewhere in this barbaric land or Cortes would
not be with us."
Alvarado's peculiarly sunny smile shone out. He was a ruddy
golden-haired man, a type unusual in Spaniards, and the natives showed a
tendency to revere him as the sun-god. Life had treated him very well,
and he had an abounding good-nature.
"It will be the better," he said comfortably, "if we get both gold and
glory. I confess I have had my doubts of the gold, for after all, these
Indians may have more sense than they appear to have."
"People often do, but in what way, especially?"
"_Amigo_, put yourself in the place of one of these caciques, with white
men bedeviling you for a treasure which you never even troubled yourself
to pick up when it lay about loose. What can be more easy than to tell
them that there is plenty of it somewhere else--in the land of your
enemies? That is Pizarro's theory, at any rate."
Saavedra laughed. "Pizarro is wise in his way, but as I have said,
Cortes is our commander."
"What has that to do with it?"
"If you had been at Salamanca in his University days you wouldn't ask.
He never got caught in a scrape, and he always got what he was after."
"And kept it?"
"Is that a little more of Pizarro's wisdom? No; he always shared the
spoils as even-handedly as you please. But if any of us lost our heads
and got into a pickle he never was concerned in it--or about it."
"He will lose his, if Velasquez catches him. Remember Balboa."
"Now there is an example of the chances he will take. Cortes first
convinces the Governor that nobody else is fit to trust with this
undertaking. Córdova failed; Grijalva failed; Cortes will succeed or
leave his bones on the field of honor. No sooner are we fairly out of
harbor than Velasquez tries to whistle us back. He might as well blow
his trumpets to the sea-gulls. All Cortes wanted was a start. You will
see--either the Governor will die or be recalled while we are gone, or
we shall come back so covered with gold and renown that he will not dare
do anything when we are again within his reach. Somebody's head may be
lost in this affair, but it will not be that of Hernan' Cortes."
The man of whom they were speaking just then approached, summoning
Alvarado to him. Saavedra leaned on the rail musing.
"Sometimes," he said to himself, "one hastens a catastrophe by warning
people of it, but then, that may be because it could not have been
prevented. Cortes is inclined to make that simple fellow his aide
because they are so unlike, and so, I suspect, are others. At any rate I
have done my best to make him see whose leadership is safest."
The fleet was a rather imposing one for those waters. There were eleven
ships altogether, the flagship and three others being over seventy tons'
weight, the rest caravels and open brigantines. These were manned by one
hundred and ten sailors, and carried five hundred and fifty-three
soldiers, of whom thirty-two were crossbowmen and thirteen arquebusiers.
There were also about two hundred Indians. Sixteen horses accompanied
the expedition, and it had ten heavy cannon, four light field-guns,
called falconets, and a good supply of ammunition. The horses cost
almost more than the ships that carried them, for they had been brought
from Spain; but their value in such an undertaking was great.
Hernando Cortes had come out to Cuba when he was nineteen, and that was
fifteen years ago. Much had been reported concerning an emperor in a
country to the west, who ruled over a vast territory inhabited by
copper-colored people rich in gold, who worshiped idols. Cortes had
observed that Indian tribes, like schoolboys, were apt to divide into
little cliques and quarreling factions. If the subject tribes did not
like the Emperor, and were jealous of him and of each other, a foreign
conqueror had one tool ready to his hand, and it was a tool that Cortes
had used many times before.
The people of this coast, however, were not at all like the gentle and
childlike natives Colón had found. From the rescued captive Aguilar, the
commander learned much of their nature and customs. On his first attempt
to land, his troops encountered troops of warriors in brilliant
feathered head-bands and body armor of quilted white cotton. They used
as weapons the lance, bow and arrows, club, and a curious staff about
three and a half feet long set with crosswise knife-blades of obsidian.
Against poisoned arrows, such as the invaders had more than once met,
neither arquebus nor cannon was of much use, and body armor was no great
protection, since a scratch on hand or leg would kill a man in a few
hours. After some skirmishing and more diplomacy, at various points
along the coast, Cortes landed his force on the island which Grijalva
had named San Juan de Ulloa, from a mistaken notion that Oloa, the
native salutation, was the name of the place. The natives had watched
the "water-houses," as they called them, sailing over the serene blue
waters, and this tribe, being peaceable folk, sent a pirogue over to the
island with gifts. There were not only fruits and flowers, but little
golden ornaments, and the Spanish commander sent some trinkets in
return. In endeavoring to talk with them Cortes became aware of an
unusual piece of luck. Aguilar did not understand the language of these
folk. But at Tabasco, where Cortes had had a fight with the native army,
some slaves had been presented to him as a peace-offering. Among them
was a beautiful young girl, daughter of a Mexican chief, who after her
father's death had been sold as a slave by her own mother, who wished to
get her inheritance. During her captivity she had learned the dialect
Aguilar spoke, and the two interpreters between them succeeded in
translating Cortes's Castilian into the Aztec of Mexico from the first.
The young girl was later baptized Marina. There being no "r" in the
Aztec language the people called her Malintzin or Malinche,--Lady
Marina, the ending "tzin" being a title of respect. She learned
Castilian with wonderful quickness, and was of great service not only to
Cortes but to her own people, since she could explain whatever he did
not understand.
Cortes learned that the name of the ruler of the country was Moteczuma.
His capital was on the plateau about seventy miles in the interior. This
coast province, which he had lately conquered, was ruled by one of his
Aztec governors. Gold was abundant. Moteczuma had great store of it.
Cortes decided to pitch his camp where afterward stood the capital of
New Spain.
The friendly Indians brought stakes and mats and helped to build huts,
native fashion. From all the country round the people flocked to see the
strange white men, bringing fruit, flowers, game, Indian corn,
vegetables and native ornaments of all sorts. Some of these they gave
away and some they bartered. Every soldier and mariner turned trader;
the place looked like a great fair.
On Easter Day the Aztec governor arrived upon a visit of ceremony.
Cortes received him in his own tent, with all courtesy, in the presence
of his officers, all in full uniform. Mass was said, and the Aztec chief
and his attendants listened with grave politeness. Then the guests were
invited to a dinner at which various Spanish dishes, wines and
sweetmeats were served as formally as at court. After this the
interpreters were summoned for the real business of the day.
The Aztec nobleman wished to know whence and why the strangers had come
to this country. Cortes answered that he was the subject of a monarch
beyond seas, as powerful as Moteczuma, who had heard of the Aztec
Emperor and sent his compliments and some gifts. The governor gracefully
expressed his willingness to convey both to his royal master. Cortes
courteously declined, saying that he must himself deliver them. At this
the governor seemed surprised and displeased; evidently this was not in
his plan. "You have been here only two days," he said, "and already
demand an audience with the Emperor?" Then he expressed his astonishment
at learning that there was any other monarch as great as Moteczuma, and
sent his attendants to bring a few gifts which he himself had chosen for
the white chief.
These tributes consisted of ten loads, each as much as a man could
carry, of fine cotton stuff, mantles of exquisite feather-work, and a
woven basket full of gold ornaments. Cortes expressed his admiration and
appreciation of the gifts, and sent for those he had brought for
Moteczuma. They consisted of an arm-chair, richly carved and painted, a
crimson cloth cap with a gold medal bearing the device of San Jorge and
the dragon, and some collars, bracelets and other ornaments of cut
glass. To the Aztec, who had never seen glass, these appeared wonderful.
He ventured the remark that a gilt helmet worn by one of the Spanish
soldiers was like the casque of their god Quetzalcoatl, and he wished
that Moteczuma could see it. Cortes immediately sent for the helmet and
handed it to the chief, with the suggestion that he should like to have
it returned full of the gold of the country in order to compare it with
the gold of Spain. Spaniards, he said, were subject to a complaint
affecting the heart, for which gold was a remedy. This was not entirely
an invention of the commander's fertile brain. Many physicians of those
days did regard gold as a valuable drug; but only Cortes ever thought of
making use of the theory to get the gold.
During this polite and interesting conversation Cortes observed certain
attendants busily making sketches of all that they saw, and on inquiry
was told that this "picture-writing" would give the Emperor a far
better idea of the appearance of the strangers than words alone. Upon
this the Spanish general ordered out the cavalry and artillery and put
them through their evolutions on the beach. The cannon, whose balls
splintered great trees, and the horsemen, whose movements the Aztecs
followed with even more terror than those of the gunners, made a
tremendous impression. The artists, though scared, stuck to their duty,
and the strange and terrible beasts, and the thunder-birds whose mouths
breathed destruction, were drawn for the Emperor to see. After this the
governor, assuring Cortes that he should have whatever he needed in the
way of provisions until further orders were received from the Emperor,
made his adieux and went home.
Then began a diplomatic game between Cortes and the Emperor and the
various chiefs of the country. The couriers of the imperial government,
who traveled in relays, could take a message to the capital and return
in seven or eight days. In due time two ambassadors arrived from
Moteczuma, with gifts evidently meant to impress the strangers with his
wealth and power. The embassy was accompanied by the governor of the
province and about a hundred slaves. Some of these attendants carried
burning censers from which arose clouds of incense; others unrolled upon
the ground fine mats on which to place the presents.
Nothing like this had ever been offered to a Spanish conqueror, even by
Moors, to say nothing of Indians. There were two collars of gold set
with precious stones; a hundred ounces of gold ore just as it came from
the mines; a large alligator's-head of gold; six shields covered with
gold; helmets and necklaces of gold. There were birds made of green
feathers, the feet, beaks and eyes of gold; a box of feather-work upon
leather, set with a gold plate weighing seventy ounces; pieces of cloth
curiously woven with feathers, and others woven in various designs. Most
gorgeous of all were two great plates as big as carriage wheels, one of
gold and one of silver, wrought with various devices of plants and
animals rather like the figures of the zodiac. The wildest tales of the
most imaginative adventurer never pictured such magnificence. If
Moteczuma's plan had been to induce the strangers to respect his wishes
and go home without visiting his capital, it was a complete failure.
After this proof of the wealth and splendor of the country Cortes had no
more idea of leaving it than a hound has of abandoning a fresh trail.
When the envoys gave him Moteczuma's message of regret that it would not
be possible for them to meet, Cortes replied that he could not think of
going back to Spain now. The road to the capital might be perilous, but
what was that to him? Would they not take to the Emperor these slight
additional tokens of the regard and respect of the Spanish ruler, and
explain to him how impossible it would be for Cortes to face his own
sovereign, with the great object of his voyage unfulfilled? There was
nothing for the embassy to do but to take the message.
While waiting for results, Cortes received a visit from some Indian
chiefs of the Totonacs, a tribe lately conquered by the Aztecs. Their
ruler, it seemed, had heard of the white cacique and would like to
receive him in his capital. Cortes gave them presents and promised to
come. In the meantime his own men were quarreling, and both parties were
threatening him. The bolder spirits announced that if he did not make a
settlement in the country, with or without instructions from the
governor of Cuba who had sent him out, they would report him to the
King. The friends of Velazquez accused Cortes of secretly encouraging
this rebellion, and demanded that as he had now made his discovery, he
should return to Cuba and report.
Cortes calmly answered that he was quite willing to return at once, and
ordered the ships made ready. This caused such a storm of wrath and
disappointment that even those who had urged it quailed. Seeing that the
time was ripe, the captain-general called his followers together and
made a speech. He declared that nobody could have the interests of the
sovereigns and the glory of the Spanish race more at heart than he had.
He was willing to do whatever was best. If they, his comrades, desired
to return to Cuba he would go directly. But if they were ready to join
him, he would found a colony in the name of the sovereigns, with all
proper officers to govern it, to remain in this rich country and trade
with the people. In that case, however, he would of course have to
resign his commission as captain-general of an expedition of discovery.
There was a roar of approval from the army at this alluring suggestion.
Before most of them fairly knew what they were about they had voted to
form a colony under the royal authority, elected Cortes governor as soon
as he resigned his former position, and seen the new governor appoint a
council in proper form, to aid in the government.
"I knew it," said Saavedra to himself as he went back, alone, to his
quarters. "Just as people have made up their minds they have got him
between the door and the jamb, he is somewhere else. When he resigned
his commission he slipped out from under the government of Cuba, and
that has no authority over him. He has appointed a council made up of
his own friends, and now he can hang every one of the Velasquez party if
they make any trouble. But they won't."
They did not. Cortes sent his flagship to Spain with some of his
especial friends and some of his particular enemies on board, the
enemies to get them out of his way, the friends to defend him to the
King against their accusations. He founded a city which he named Villa
Rica de Vera Cruz, the Rich Town of the True Cross. Then, as the next
step toward the invasion of the country, he proceeded to play Indian
politics.
First he accepted the invitation of the chief of the Totonacs, and
Moteczuma, hearing of it, sent the tax-gatherers to collect tribute and
also to demand twenty young men and women to sacrifice to the gods as an
atonement for having entertained the strangers. Cortes expressed lively
horror, and advised the chief of the Totonacs to throw the tax-gatherers
into prison. Then he secretly rescued them and telling them how deeply
he regretted their misfortunes as innocent men doing their duty to their
ruler, he sent them on board his own ships for safe-keeping. When the
Emperor heard what had happened he was enraged against the Totonacs. If
they wished to escape his vengeance now their only chance was to become
allies of Cortes.
Thus within a few days after landing, the commander had got all of his
own followers and a powerful native tribe so bound up with his fortunes
that they could not desert him without endangering their own skins. He
now suggested to two of the pilots that they should report five of the
ships to be in an unseaworthy condition from the borings of the
teredos--in those days sheathing for hulls had not been invented, and
the ship-worm was a constant danger, in tropical waters especially. At
the pilots' report Cortes appeared astonished, but saying that there was
nothing to do but make the best of it, ordered the ships to be
dismantled, the cordage, sails and everything that could be of use
brought on shore, and the stripped hulls scuttled and sunk. Then four
more were condemned, leaving but one small ship.
There was nearly a riot in the army, marooned in an unknown and
unfriendly land. Cortes made another speech. He pointed out the fact
that if they were successful in the expedition to the capital they would
not need the ships; if they were not, what good would the ships do them
when they were seventy leagues inland? Those who dared not take the risk
with him could still return to Cuba in the one ship that was left. "They
can tell there," he added in a tone which cut the deeper for being so
very quiet, "how they deserted their commander and their friends, and
patiently wait until we return with the spoils of the Aztecs."
An instant of breathless silence followed, then somebody shouted. A
hundred voices took up the cry,--
"To Mexico! To Mexico!"
Of the adventures, the fighting, the wonderful sights and the narrow
escapes of the march to the capital, Bernal Diaz, who was with the army,
wrote afterward in bulky volumes. On the seventh day of November, 1519,
the compact little force of Spaniards, little more than a battalion in
all, with their Indian allies from the provinces which had rebelled
against the Emperor, came in sight of the capital. The moment at which
Cortes, at the head of his followers, rode into the city of Mexico is
one of the most dramatic in all history. Nothing in any novel of
adventure compares with it in amazing contrast or tragic possibilities.
The men of the Age of Cannon met the men of the Age of Stone. The mighty
Catholic Church confronted a nation of snake-worshiping cannibals. The
sons of a race that lived in hardy simplicity, a race of fighters, had
come into a capital where life was more luxurious than it was in
Seville, Paris or Rome--a heathen capital rich in beauty, wealth and all
the arts of a barbarian people.
The city had been built on an island in the middle of a salt lake,
reached by three causeways of masonry four or five miles long and twenty
or thirty feet wide. At the end near the city each causeway had a wooden
drawbridge. There were paved streets and water-ways. The houses, built
around large court-yards, were of red stone, sometimes covered with
white stucco. The roofs were encircled with battlements and defended
with towers. Often they were gardens of growing flowers. In the center
of the city was the temple enclosure, surrounded by an eight-foot stone
wall. Within this were a score of teocallis, or pyramids flattened at
the top, the largest, that of the war-god, being about a hundred feet
high. Stone stairs wound four times around the pyramid, so that
religious processions appeared and disappeared on their way to the top.
On the summit was a block of jasper, rounded at top, the altar of human
sacrifice. Near by were the shrines and altars of the gods. Outside the
temple enclosure was a huge altar, or embankment, called the
tzompantli, one hundred and fifty-four feet long, upon which the skulls
of innumerable victims were arranged. The doorways and walls everywhere
were carved with the two symbols of the Aztec religion--the cross and
the snake. Among the birds in the huge aviary of the royal establishment
were the humming-birds which were sacred to one of the most cruel of the
gods, and in cages built for them were the rattlesnakes also held
sacred. Flowers were everywhere--in garlands hung about the city, in the
hands of the people, on floating islands in the water, in the gardens
blazing with color.
The Spanish strangers were housed in a great stone palace and
entertained no less magnificently than the gifts of the Emperor had led
them to expect. The houses were ceiled with cedar and tapestried with
fine cotton or feather work. Moteczuma's table service was of gold and
silver and fine earthenware. The people wore cotton garments, often dyed
vivid scarlet with cochineal, the men wearing loose cloaks and fringed
sashes, the women, long robes. Fur capes and feather-work mantles and
tunics were worn in cold weather; sandals and white cotton hoods
protected feet and head. The women sometime used a deep violet hair-dye.
Ear-rings, nose-rings, finger-rings, bracelets, anklets and necklaces
were of gold and silver.
Moteczuma himself, a tall slender man about forty years old, came to
meet them in a palanquin shining with gold and canopied with
feather-work. As he descended from it his attendants laid cotton mats
upon the ground that he might not soil his feet. He wore the broad
girdle and square cloak of cotton cloth which other men wore, but of the
finest weave. His sandals had soles of pure gold. Both cloak and sandals
were embroidered with pearls, emeralds, and a kind of stone much
prized by the Aztecs, the chalchivitl, green and white. On his head he
wore a plumed head-dress of green, the royal color. When Cortes with his
staff approached the building set apart for their quarters, Moteczuma
awaited them in the courtyard. From a vase of flowers held by an
attendant he took a massive gold collar, in which the shell of a certain
crawfish was set in gold and connected by golden links. Eight golden
ornaments a span long, wrought to represent the same shell-fish, hung
from this chain. Moteczuma hung the necklace about the neck of Cortes
with a graceful little speech of welcome.
[Illustration: "Moteczuma awaited them in the courtyard"--_Page_ 162]
The Aztec Emperor was making the best of a situation which he did not
like at all. In other Mexican cities Cortes had ordered the idols cast
headlong down the steps of the teocalli, the temples cleansed, and a
crucifix wreathed in flowers to be set up in place of the red altar
stained with human blood. He was attended by some seven thousand native
allies from tribes considered by the Aztecs as wild barbarians. His
daring behavior and military successes had all been reported to
Moteczuma by the picture-writing of his scribes. There was a tradition
among the Aztecs that some day white bearded strangers would come,
destroy the worship of the old gods of blood and terror, and restore the
worship of the fair god Quetzalcoatl. Before the white men landed there
had been earthquakes, meteors and other omens. Would the old gods
destroy the invaders and all who joined them, or was this the great
change which the prophets foretold? Who could say?
In the beautiful, terrible city Cortes moved alert and silent, courteous
to all, every nerve as sensitive to new impressions as a leaf to the
wind. He knew that strong as the priesthood of the fierce gods
undoubtedly was, there was surely an undercurrent of rebellion against
their cruelty and their unlimited power. In a fruitless attempt to keep
the Spaniards out of the city by the aid of the gods, three hundred
little children had been sacrificed. If Cortes failed to conquer, by
peaceful means or otherwise, nothing was more certain than that he and
all of his followers not killed in the fighting would be butchered on
the top of those terrible pyramids sooner or later. Yet he looked about
him and said, under his breath,
"This is the most beautiful city in the world."
"And you think we shall win it for the Cross and the King?" asked
Saavedra in the same quiet tone.
"We must win," said Cortes, with a spark in his eyes like the flame in
the heart of a black opal. "There is nothing else to do."