THE CROWNING OF GUATEMOC Our business with the people of the Otomie being ended for a while, we returned to the city of Tenoctitlan, which we reached safely, having been absent a month and a day.

It was but a little time, and yet long enough for fresh sorrows to have fallen on that most unhappy town.

For now the Almighty had added to the burdens which were laid upon her.

She had tasted of death by the sword of the white man, now death was with her in another shape.

For the Spaniard had brought the foul sicknesses of Europe with him, and small-pox raged throughout the land.