As the setting sun threw its last beam over the magical valley, Cortez gazed from afar on a most wonderful scene. It was an unknown city in an unknown world, peopled by a race evincing a high state of civilization. The little band of conquerors had fought their way inch by inch from the coast to the valley of Mexico. They were encamped on the hills above ready to descend into the valley early next morning.

Cortez slept but little the night before his tri umphal march into the valley of Montezuma. His ambitious mind was busy with the future and the past. Like a terrible panorama, the events of the past few months swept before him as, wrapped in his cloak, he lay on the ground, his saddle for a pillow.

*In the description of the city and valley of Mexico given in this chapter, the author has taken Prescott for his guide.

Like a shrewd general and cunning politician, he had succeeded in dividing the enemy into factions, turning them against each other. While professing friendship to Montezuma, he incited his subjects to rebellion. His path from the coast to the valley of Mexico was a trail of blood. Ever at his side, encouraging him by word and act, was Doña Marina. In peace or war she was his counsellor and adviser. The darts never flew too thick to drive her from his side, until the Aztecs came to believe that she, as well as Cortez, was a supernatural being, not to be slain with mortal weapons. Next to Doña Marina was Cortez's friend Hernando Estevan. He who had been first to land with Columbus on the shores of the New World was in the van on that dangerous march to Mexico.

Long before dawn Estevan was awakened by voices, and, rising, he buckled on his armor.

"This day will witness the beginning of our triumph or our death," he thought. Estevan was now a battle-scarred veteran, who had come to regard death-struggles with indifference. He sat down to await the dawn, when again voices reached his ear. A female voice, low and soft as rippling

waters was heard first.

"For shame! to fear now, when triumph is within your grasp. You know Cortez cannot be

defeated."

It was Doña Marina, talking to some faltering soldiers.

"He is but a man," answered one of the soldiers, "and any man may fail. He destroyed our ships, led us into the heart of a hostile nation, and now proposes to take us into the capital where we may be butchered without mercy."

"Coward!" hissed Marina in disgust, "can you fear with such a leader? Montezuma will not dare resist Cortez, and if you murmur again, I will have you hanged."

The soldier slunk away, silenced for the time being by the threat.

Estevan rose to his feet, yawning and shivering with the damp and chill of early morning. Cortez came toward him at that moment.

"Estevan, is your company in readiness?" he asked.

"It is."

"Are the men in good spirits?"

"They seem to be, general.'

"We will be in the valley before the sun sets. Bid your men be firm and watchful. Montezuma is a shrewd and treacherous knave. We must be watchful, for we shall soon be within his walls."

At early dawn the trumpet sounded the reveille, and the Spaniards formed for the march.

The

troops, refreshed by a night's rest, succeeded soon after sun-rise, in gaining the crest of the sierra of Ahualco, which stretches like a curtain between the two great mountains on the north and south.

A blast of trumpets gave the order to advance, and the march began. It was a sublime sight. The rising sun flashed on the glittering spears, banners, and gayly caparisoned horses, prancing in time to the martial music. They had not advanced far, when, turning an angle of the sierra, they came suddenly on a view which fully compensated them for the weeks of toil and hardship. It was the valley of Mexico, or Tenochtlitan, as it was called by the Aztecs. With its picturesque groupings of water, woodland, and cultivated plains, shining cities and shadowy hills, it lay spread out like some gorgeous panorama before them. In the highly rarefied atmosphere of these upper regions, even remote objects have a brilliancy of coloring and a distinctiness of outline, which seem to annihilate distance. Stretching far away below them were seen noble forests of oak, sycamore, and cedar, and, beyond, yellow fields of maize, and the towering maguey, intermingled with orchards and blooming gardens. In the centre of the great basin were lakes, then occupying a much larger portion of its surface than at present. Their borders were studded thickly with towns and

hamlets, and in the midst, like some Indian em press with her coronal of pearls, was the fair city of Mexico, with white towers and pyramidal temples, reposing, as it were, on the bosom of the waters— the far-famed "Venice of the Aztecs." High over all, rose the royal hill of Chapultepec, the residence of the Mexican monarchs, crowned with gigantic cypresses, which to this day fling their shadows over the land. In the distance, beyond the blue waters of the lake, and nearly screened by intervening foliage, was seen a shining speck, the rival capital of Tezcuco, and still further on, the dark belt of parphyr, girdling the valley like a rich setting which nature had devised for the fairest of her jewels. Such was the beautiful vision which greeted the eyes of the Spanish conquerors.

They gazed for the first time on a strange valley, a strange people, and a wonderful city, in a land which, forty years before, was unknown to the civilized world. Overwhelming emotions stirred the breast of Cortez, when, after working his toilsome way into the upper air, the cloudy veil parted before his eyes, and he beheld these fair scenes in all their pristine glory. The poetic feelings of Cortez, roused by the grandeur of the scene, soon gave way to more sordid thoughts, for he saw here evidences of a civilization and power far superior to anything he had yet encountered in the New World.