proceedings which under pretext of his authority had caused loss of Spanish life. No attention was paid to explanations, and he was surrendered with his followers to the Spaniards, to be dealt with as they thought fit.16 Cortés held a trial: he was a shrewd inquisitor, and his sentence was sure to accord with his own interests. “Are you a vassal of Montezuma?” he asked of Quauhpopoca. “What else could I be?” was the reply. “Did you attack Spaniards by his order?” The prisoner was in a most serious dilemma. At first he refused to implicate the emperor, but finding that his fate was sealed he confessed having acted under his orders.17 This could not avail him, however, for in obeying his master he had injured the subjects and outraged the laws and majesty of the Spanish king, who was sovereign of all, and this demanded punishment.
The fact was that Spanish prestige, on which so much depended, had suffered through the machinations of the governor, and it was considered necessary to restore it. Therefore it was decreed that Quauhpopoca, with his son and officers, should be burned alive in the plaza, before the palace. Cortés availed himself of the opportunity to seize all the arms in the arsenals,18 and therewith build a pyre worthy such noted offenders.
When all was ready Cortés presented himself before the emperor, and announced with a severe tone that the evidence of the condemned showed their acts to have been authorized by him, and as a life called for a life, according to Spanish laws, he deserved death. Cortés, however, loved him—for himself, his generosity, and services he loved him too dearly to let justice have its course, and would take on himself to appease its demands by a nominal punishment.19 He then turned on his heel, while one of the soldiers clasped a pair of shackles round the prisoner’s ankles, and the