CHAPTER XXVIII
DEAD SEA APPLES
The conqueror is once more entering his city of Mexico, and natives and Spaniards alike throng to meet him with tumultuous joy. Two years of blood-stained anarchy have marked the absence of his iron hand. Reports of his death in the far-away marshes of the south have bred dissension and despair on every side, and now intensify this passionate welcome which seems to know no bounds. But the cheers die painfully away as the people gaze on the wan, haggard face of their idol. How changed! how aged! His intimate friends hardly recognise this ghost of the once brilliant Hernando Cortés. Not all the horrors and hardships of the siege of Mexico left such traces of suffering as this terrible march to Honduras.
Not for long was Cortés permitted to rule his province in peace. Such stories had his enemies sent to the Emperor in Castile that commissioners arrived from Europe to investigate the conduct of the Governor of New Spain. The conqueror, ever impatient of petty interference, found his actions trammelled and his influence undermined at every
