reproaches, some of them
addressed to the emperor.

"And am I taking pleasure in my bath, do you think?" proudly replied
the young chief, while the soles of his feet were being immersed in the
same dreadful cauldron.

He was lame and more or less helpless for the rest of his life. I have
no doubt that he often wished that he had been cut down in the final
moment of his defeat. He dragged on a miserable existence until Cortes
put him to death by hanging several years after the conquest while in
Honduras on an expedition. The charge against him, so Cortes writes to
Charles V., was conspiracy. The evidence was flimsy enough, yet it is
probable that Cortes believed it. The expedition was far from Mexico,
surrounded by hostile nations, and Cortes, as usual, was in great
danger. Helps thus describes the bitter end of the noble young emperor:

"When led to execution, the King of Mexico exclaimed, 'O Malinche, I
have long known the falseness of your words, and have foreseen that you
would give me that death which, alas! I did not give myself, when I
surrendered to you in my city of Mexico. Wherefore do you slay me
without justice? May God demand it of you!'

"The King of the Tlacuba said that he looked upon his death as welcome,
since he was able to die with his Lord, the King of Mexico. After
confession and absolution, the two kings were hanged upon a ceyba tree
in Izzancanac, in the province of Acalan, on one of the carnival days
before Shrovetide, in the year 1525. Thus ended the great Mexican
dynasty--itself a thing compacted by so much blood and toil and {218}
suffering of countless human beings. The days of deposed
monarchs--victims alike to the zeal of their friends and the suspicions
of their captors--are mostly very brief; and perhaps it is surprising
that the King of Mexico should have survived as long as four years the
conquest of his capital, and have been treated during the greater part
of that time with favor and honor.

"Some writers have supposed that Cortes was weary of his captives, and
wished to destroy them, and that the charge of conspiracy was
fictitious. Such assertions betray a total ignorance of the character
of this great Spaniard. Astute men seldom condescend to lying. Now,
Cortes was not only very astute, but, according to his notions, highly
honorable. A genuine hidalgo, and a thoroughly loyal man, he would as
soon have thought of committing a small theft as of uttering a
falseh