Montezuma said he would gather his caciques and advise with them. Within ten days he had assembled nearly all those of the country round about. The cacique of Matalcingo, however, most nearly related to Montezuma, as I have said, and probable successor of the monarch, did not come. He sent word that he was unable to pay tribute and so would not come to the meeting—in fact, on what he got from his province he was scarcely able to live himself. Angry at this answer, Montezuma sent warriors to take the cacique prisoner, but he, warned of the approach of the band, fled to the interior of his province and kept himself out of reach.
To the other caciques Montezuma recalled the tradition handed down by their forefathers, written down in their books of records, that a people should some day come from the quarter where the sun rose to rule their lands and end the Mexican dominion; those men he believed were we; the papas had asked Huitzilopochtli about it and had offered sacrifices, but the gods no longer answered as they used to do; all that they could conclude was that what Huitzilopochtli had told them before he meant as his answer now, and now they must take his meaning to be that they should give their pledge to the king of Spain, whose subjects these teules were.
"For the present," continued Montezuma, "we cannot do otherwise. We must wait and see if our
