Note 495 — Chapter XVII · CAPTURE OF THE EMPEROR. November, 1519.

‘No dexarian de quedar aprobechados ... y satisfacer a su necesidad,’ says Vetancurt, who knew the avarice of his countrymen too well to believe in denials. Teatro, pt. iii. 131. Bernal Diaz says that Yañez, as the servant of Velazquez de Leon and Lugo, revealed the discovery to them, and they told Cortés. The soldiers all heard of it, and came quietly to gaze on the treasures, which rumor had already located somewhere in the palace. ‘Being then a young man,’ says the old soldier, ‘and having never seen such wealth, I felt sure that there was not anything like it in the world.’ Hist. Verdad., 72; Herrera, dec. ii. lib. viii. cap. ii. Tapia and Gomara state that Cortés discovered the door-way as he was walking in his room one evening, pondering on his plans for seizing Montezuma. ‘Cerro la puerta ... por no escandalizar a Motecçuma, no se estoruasse por esso su prisiõ.’ Gomara, Hist. Mex., 123; Tapia, Rel., in Icazbalceta, Col. Doc., ii. 579. Duran intimates that on hearing of the existence of treasures in the palace, the Spaniards, including the ‘Santo Clérigo,’ occupied themselves more in searching for them than in promoting the faith. They did not find them, however, till Montezuma revealed the hiding-place, under the pressure of questions and, it seems, of hunger. Hist. Ind., MS., ii. 445-6.