AS predicted by the 'tzin, the Spaniards set out early
next morning — the morning of the 24th of June—
by the causeway from Iztapalapan, already notable in this
story.

At their head rode the Señor Hernan, silent, thoughtful,
and not well pleased; pondering, doubtless, the misconduct
of the adelantado in the old palace to which he was marching,
and the rueful condition it might impose upon the expedition.

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The cavaliers next in the order of march, which was that
of battle, rode and talked as men are wont when drawing
nigh the end of a long and toilsome task. This the leader
at length interrupted, —

“Señores, come near. Yonder ye may see the gate of
Xoloc,” he continued, when they were up. “If the heathen
captains think to obstruct our entry, they would do well,
now that our ships lie sunken in the lake, to give us battle
there. Ride we forward to explore what preparations, if any,
they have made.”

So they rode, at quickened pace, arms rattling, spurs jingling,
and found the gate deserted.

“Viva compañeros!” cried Cortes, riding through the
shadow of the battlements. “Give the scabbards their
swords again. There will be no battle; the way to the palace
is open.” And, waiting till the column was at their heels,
he turned to the trumpeters, and shouted, cheerily, “Ola, ye
lazy knaves! Since the march began, ye have not been
heard from. Out now, and blow! Blow as if ye were each
a Roland, with Roland's horn. Blow merrily a triumphal
march, that our brethren in the leaguer ahead may know
deliverance at hand.”

The feeling of the chief spread rapidly; first, to the
cavaliers; then to the ranks, where soon there were shouting
and singing; and simultaneous with the trumpetry, over
the still waters sped the minstrelsy of the Tlascalans. Ere
long they had the answer of the garrison; every gun in
the palace thundered welcome.

Cortes settled in his saddle smiling: he was easy in mind;
the junction with Alvarado was assured; the city and the
king were his, and he could now hold them; nevertheless,
back of his smile there was much thought. True, his enemies
in Spain would halloo spitefully over the doughty
deed he had just done down in Cempoalla. No matter.

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The Court and the Council had pockets, and he could fill them
with gold, — gold by the caravel, if necessary; and for the
pacification of his most Catholic master, the Emperor, had
he not the New World? And over the schedule of guerdons
sure to follow such a gift to such a master he lingered complacently,
as well he might. Patronage, and titles, and high
employments, and lordly estates danced before his eyes, as
danced the sun's glozing upon the crinkling water.

One thought, however, — only one, — brought him trouble.
The soldiers of Narvaez were new men, ill-disciplined,
footsore, grumbling, discontented, disappointed. He remembered
the roseate pictures by which they had been won
from their leader before the battle was joined. `The
Empire was already in possession; there would be no
fighting; the march would be a promenade through grand
landscapes, and by towns and cities, whose inhabitants
would meet them in processions, loaded with fruits and
flowers, tributes of love and fear,' — so he had told them
through his spokesmen, Olmedo, the priest, and Duero, the
secretary. Nor failed he now to recall the chief inducements
in the argument, — the charms of the heathen capital, and the
easy life there waiting, — a life whose sole vexation would
be apportionment of the lands conquered and the gold gathered.
And the wonderful city, — here it was, placid as
ever; and neither the valley, nor the lake, nor the summering
climate, nor the abundance of which he had spoken,
failed his description; nothing was wanting but the people,
THE PEOPLE! Where were they? He looked at the prize
ahead; gyres of smoke, slowly rising and purpling as they
rose, were all the proofs of life within its walls. He swept
the little sea with angry eyes; in the distance a canoe, stationary,
and with a solitary occupant, and he a spy! And
this was the grand reception promised the retainers of
Narvaez! He struck his mailed thigh with his mailed hand

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fiercely, and, turning in his saddle, looked back. The column
was moving forward compactly, the new men distinguishable
by the freshness of their apparel and equipments.
“Bien!” he said, with a grim smile and cunning solace,
“Bien! they will fight for life, if not for majesty and me.”

Close by the wall Father Bartolomé overtook him, and,
after giving rein to his mule, and readjusting his hood, said,
gravely, “If the tinkle of my servant's bell disturb not thy
musing, Señor, — I have been through the files, and bring
thee wot of the new men.”

“Welcome, father,” said Cortes, laughing. “I am not an
evil spirit to fly the exorcisement of thy bell, not I; and so
I bid thee welcome. But as for whereof thou comest to
tell, no more, I pray. I know of what the varlets speak.
And as I am a Christian, I blame them not. We promised
them much, and — this is all: fair sky, fair land, strange
city, — and all without people! Rueful enough, I grant;
but, as matter more serious, what say the veterans? Came
they within thy soundings?”

“Thou mayest trust them, Señor. Their tongues go with
their swords. They return to the day of our first entry here,
and with excusable enlargement tell what they saw then in
contrast with the present.”

“And whom blame they for the failure now?”

“The captain Alvarado.”

Cortes' brows dropped, and he became thoughtful again,
and in such temper rode into the city.

Within the walls, everywhere the visitors looked, were
signs of life, but nowhere a living thing; neither on the
street, nor in the houses, nor on the housetops, — not
even a bird in the sky. A stillness possessed the place,
peculiar in that it seemed to assert a presence, and palpably
lurk in the shade, lie on the doorsteps, issue from the windows,
and pervade the air; giving notice, so that not a man,

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new or veteran, but was conscious that, in some way, he was
menaced with danger. There is nothing so appalling as the
unaccountable absence of life in places habitually populous;
nothing so desolate as a deserted city.

“Por Dios!” said Olmedo, toying with the beads at his
side, “I had rather the former reception than the present.
Pleasanter the sullen multitude than the silence without the
multitude.”

Cortes made him no answer, but rode on abstractedly,
until stopped by his advance-guard.

“At rest!” he said, angrily. “Had ye the signal? I
heard it not.”

“Nor did we, Señor,” replied the officer in charge. “But,
craving thy pardon, approach, and see what the infidels have
done here.”

Cortes drew near, and found himself on the brink of the
first canal. He swore a great oath; the bridge was dismantled.
On the hither side, however, lay the timbers,
frame and floor. The tamanes detailed from the guns replaced
them.

“Bartolomé, good father,” said Cortes, confidentially,
when the march was resumed, “thou hast a commendable
habit of holding what thou hearest, and therefore I shame
not to confess that I, too, prefer the first reception. The
absence of the heathen and the condition of yon bridge
are parts of one plan, and signs certain of battle now ready
to be delivered.”

“If it be God's will, amen!” replied the priest, calmly.
“We are stronger than when we went out.”

“So is the enemy, for he hath organized his people. The
hordes that stared at us so stupidly when we first came —
be the curse of the saints upon them! — are now fighting
men.”

Olmedo searched his face, and said, coldly, “To doubt
is to dread the result.”

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“Nay, by my conscience! I neither doubt nor dread. Yet
I hold it not unseemly to confess that I had rather meet the
brunt on the firm land, with room for what the occasion
offers. I like not yon canal, with its broken bridge, too
wide for horse, too deep for weighted man; it putteth us to
disadvantage, and hath a hateful reminder of the brigantines,
which, as thou mayest remember, we left at anchor, mistresses
of the lake; in our absence they have been lost, — a
most measureless folly, father! But let it pass, let it pass!
The Mother — blessed be her name! — hath not forsaken us.
Montezuma is ours, and —”

“He is victory,” said Olmedo, zealously.

“He is the New World!” answered Cortes.

And so it chanced that the poor king was centre of
thought for both the 'tzin and his enemy, — the dread of one
and the hope of the other.