Note 790 — Chapter XXIV · FIGHT UPON THE TEMPLE SUMMIT. June, 1520.

It was related afterward that when the natives first sought to remove the virgin image their hands clove powerlessly to it for some time, and left their marks upon it. Oviedo, iii. 510. Montezuma, being told of this miracle, ordered the image to be left in its place. Afterward, ‘pareciò, segun supimos, que el gran Monteçuma tenia ó deuocion en ella, ó miedo, y la mandó guardar.’ Bernal Diaz, Hist. Verdad., 104, 102. Others, as will be shown, suppose it to have been saved by its owner, Villafuerte, perhaps when Cortés withdrew the troops from the temple, or to have fled by its own miraculous power to the shrine at Remedios.