A suite of servitors followed, some with fans and dusters, for the comfort of their masters. Passing the Spanish quarter without deigning to salute the strangers, the emissaries of the mighty Montezuma entered another large building, and after refreshing themselves summoned the tributary chiefs, reprimanded them for having received the Spaniards without permission from Montezuma, and demanded twenty young persons for an atoning sacrifice. Well might the demoniacal order cause to tremble every youth throughout the land; for whose turn should be next none could tell. Even the faces of the chiefs were blanched as they told Cortés, informing him also that it was already determined in Aztec circles to make slaves of the Spaniards, and after being used awhile for purposes of procreation, they were to be sacrificed.39 Cortés laughed, and ordered the Totonacs to seize the insolent officials. What! lay violent hands on Montezuma’s messengers? The very thought to them was appalling. Nevertheless they did it, for there was something in the tone of Cortés that made them obey, though they could not distinguish the meaning of his words. They laid hold on those tax-men of Montezuma, put collars on their necks, and tied their hands and feet to poles.40 Their timidity thus broken, they became audacious, and demanded the sacrifice of the prisoners.41 “By no means,” Cortés said, and he himself assumed their custody.
Howsoever the cards fall to him, a skilful gamester plays each severally, nothing cavilling, at its worth. So Cortés now played these messengers, the method assuming form in his mind immediately he saw them. With him this whole Mexican business was one great game, a life game, though it should last but a day; and as the agencies and influences of it fell into his fingers, with the subtlety of the serpent he dealt them out, placing one here and another there, playing with equal readiness enemy against enemy, and multiplying friends by friends.