h that it would be returned filled with the gold-dust of the
Aztecs, that he might compare it with the Spanish gold-dust!

One reporter who was present says:

He further told Governor Teuhtlile that the Spaniards were troubled
with a disease of the heart for which gold was a specific remedy!

Another incident of this notable interview was that one of the Mexican
attendants was observed by Cortes to be scribbling with a pencil. It was
an artist sketching the appearance of the strangers, their dress, arms,
and attitude, and filling in the picture with touches of color. Struck
with the idea of being thus represented to the Mexican monarch, Cortes
ordered the cavalry to be exercised on the beach in front of the
artists.

The bold and rapid movements of the troops, ... the apparent ease
with which they managed the fiery animals on which they were
mounted, the glancing of their weapons, and the shrill cry of the
trumpet, all filled the spectators with astonishment; but when they
heard the thunders of the cannon, which Cortes ordered to be fired
at the same time, and witnessed the volumes of smoke and flame
issuing from these terrible engines, and the rushing sound of the
balls, as they dashed through the trees of the neighboring forest,
shivering their branches into fragments, they were filled with
consternation and wonder, from which the Aztec chief himself was
not wholly free.

This was all faithfully copied by the picture-writers, so far as their
art went, in sketching and vivid coloring. They also recorded the ships
of the strangers--"the water-houses," as they were named--whose dark
hulls and snow-white sails were swinging at anchor in the bay.

Meantime what had Montezuma been doing, the sad-faced[19] and haughty
Emperor of Mexico, land of the Aztecs and the Tezcucans? At the
beginning of his reign he had as a skilful general led his armies as far
as Honduras and Nicaragua, extending the limits of the empire, so that
it had now reached the maximum.

[Footnote 19: The name Montezuma means "sad or severe man," a title
suited to his features, though not to his mild character.]

Tezcuco, the sister state to Mexico, had latterly shown hostility to
Montezuma, and still more formidable was the republic of Tlascala, lying
between his capital and the coast. Prodigies and prophecies now began to
affect all classes of the population in the Mexican Valley. Eve