r oppressors.
In truth, Marina time and again used her influence with Cortes on the
side of mercy, and she always displayed a profound sympathy with the
misfortunes of the Mexicans, notwithstanding the fact that she may have
in some ways aided their foes and tyrants. Even though the act which
more than aught else struck terror into the souls of the Indians--the
cutting off of the hands of fifty Tlascalans, who had come to the camp
of Cortes in the garb of ambassadors but were suspected of being
spies--was directly traceable to the watchfulness of Marina in the cause
of the man she loved, she was never held culpable by the natives for her
guardianship, though this resulted so disastrously to those who, if not
precisely her countrymen, were assuredly more nearly of consanguineous
race than were those whom she defended from them. It was these people
too, who, after their desperate but vain struggle with the Spaniards,
whose arms and valor proved invincible against overwhelming numbers,
were the most faithful allies of Cortes in his battles with the Aztecs.
Munoz Camargo relates that, among other tokens of their friendship, they
presented numbers of "beautiful maidens" to the Conqueror and his
companions.

All through the wonderful march to the capital, through the honorable
reception accorded to Cortes, through the siege which was the
consequence of Spanish treachery, through the "Terrible Night," which
saw the banishment of Spanish power for a time from Tenochtitlan,
through the long march back to the coast, through all perils, as through
all triumphs, Marina stood by the side of her lover, watchful of his
welfare, wise in suggestion, tender in helpfulness, in all things a
noble type of woman. When the unhappy Montezuma was made prisoner within
his own capital, Marina alone of those who surrounded him never forgot
the reverence that was due to the monarch, and it was she who nursed him
most tenderly when he lay dying under the wounds inflicted by his own
outraged subjects. It was she who most uncomplainingly bore the
privations of the siege, she who most bravely met the terrors of the
"Noche Triste;" and it may be said that it was she more than any other
single man or woman, Alvarado and Sandoval not excepted, who helped
Cortes to establish the Spanish rule in Mexico.

The question of the gratitude of Cortes for these services and for her
love is one that is to be settled by each reader of history according to
his own i