all-conquering Aztec tremble at this display
of the mysterious strangers? Are not the millions of Anahuac a match for
a few hundred of their enemies, in whatever form they come? Be they
gods, or be they demons, they belong not to this soil, nor this soil to
them, and, by all our altars and all our gods, they must retire or
perish, though we, and our wives, and our children perish with them."

"Give us your hand, brave Axayatl," exclaimed Cuitlahua and Guatimozin,
at the same instant, "be that our vow in life and in death, and wo to
the base Aztec, that abandons the standard of Montezuma, or whispers of
submission to the haughty stranger."

Thus were the councils of the people divided between a timid
superstition, and a bold uncompromising patriotism. There wanted not the
material, if well directed, to annihilate, at a blow, the hopes of the
daring invaders. The arm of the nation was strong and sinewy, but "the
head was sick, and the heart faint." The Emperor, the hitherto proud and
self-sufficient Montezuma,--

Like a struck eagle fainting in his nest,

had cowered to a phantom of his own diseased imagination, and weakly
consented to regard _them_ as gods, whose passions, appetites and vices
proved them to be men, and whose diminished numbers, after every battle
they had fought, showed they were of mortal mould.

On the following day, a magnificent banquet was prepared for Cortez, and
his officers, in the imperial palace. It was graced by the presence of
all the nobility of Azteca, with all the pride and beauty of their
household divinities--for, among this refined people, the wife and the
daughter held her appropriate rank, and woman exercised all the
influence, which, among (so called) civilized nations, Christianity
alone has assigned her. Every apartment of that spacious and magnificent
pile blazed with the light of odoriferous torches, which sent up their
clouds of incense from hundreds of gold and silver stands, elaborately
carved and embossed in every form that fancy could suggest, or ingenuity
invent. Flowers of every hue and name were profusely distributed through
the rooms, clustered in beautiful vases, or hung in gorgeous festoons
and luxurious chaplets from the walls. The costume of the monarch and
his court was as rich and gorgeous, as the rare and variegated
_plumage_, with a lavish use of gold and gems, could make it. The women
were as splendidly apparelled as the men. Many of them were extremely