"Being Indebted To Your Great King,
Whom I Much Esteem For Having Sent You As His Ambassadors To Me From
So
great a distance, and as I am convinced by the prophecies transmitted to
us by our ancestors, and confirmed
By our gods, that he is destined to
rule over us, take this gold, which is all I could collect on so short a
notice, and also the treasure which I inherited from my ancestors which
you have already seen; send all this to your emperor, and let it be
recorded in your chronicles that this is the tribute from his vassal
Montezuma. Besides all this, I shall give you for your monarch, a quantity
of our most valuable jewels, which we call _calchihuis_[9], every one of
which is worth two loads of gold, and three tubes for shooting darts or
pellets, so richly adorned with jewels that he will be pleased with them.
Accept all this as an instance of my good will, for it is the last of my
treasure." We all immediately took off our helmets, and gave our hearty
thanks to Montezuma for his munificent and liberal gift, which Cortes
promised should be presented to the emperor with a just representation of
the merits of the donor. We were employed for three days in taking to
pieces the gold contained in the various ornamental articles in the
concealed treasury, which was now delivered up to us by the command of
Montezuma, in which we were assisted by the royal goldsmiths from the town
of Escapuzalco.
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