ood in a despatch addressed to his sovereign."

XV. The End of Cortes

Cortes received a full reward for his conquest, at least for a time.
He was received in high favor by Charles V., whom he visited in Spain,
and who made him Marques of the Valley of Mexico.

"There is on record a single sentence of the Emperor's that must have
been addressed to Cortes in some private interview, which shows the
gracious esteem in which he was held by his sovereign. Borrowing a
metaphor from the archery-ground, and gracefully, as it seems, alluding
to a former misappreciation of the services of Cortes, the Emperor said
that he wished to deal with him as those who contend with the crossbow,
whose first shots go wide of the mark, and then {219} they improve and
improve, until they hit the centre of the white. So, continued His
Majesty, he wished to go on until he had shot into the white of what
should be done to reward the Marquis' deserts; and meanwhile nothing
was to be taken from him which he then held.

"It was very pleasing to find that Cortes did not forget his old
friends the Tlascalans, but dwelt on their services, and procured from
the Emperor an order that they should not be given _encomienda_ to His
Majesty, or to any other person."

The only reward the Tlascalans got from the Emperor was that, when the
other Mexicans were made slaves, they were left at least nominally
free, but their republic soon fell into decay and the city in which
they had so proudly maintained themselves in their independence, became
a desolate ruin. A dirty and squalid village to-day marks the place.

Marina, who had served the Spaniards for the love of the great captain
with such fidelity and such success, was cast off by Cortes and
compelled to marry one of his officers, whom she scarcely knew. This
crushed her spirit. She abandoned her husband and sank into wretched
and miserable obscurity, and died at an early age of a broken heart.

Cortes conducted other expeditions, most of them without any great
success, as that to Honduras, where he hanged the last of the Aztec
Kings. Jealousy arose in the great state which he had founded, and he
fell out of favor with the Emperor, who refused to see him, and he was
received with cold and bitter reproaches by his wife, whom he married
after the death of his former wife, and who had never proved a comfort
to him. An admirable marriage which {220} he had arranged for his
daughter with one of the h