The children are visited because of the evil of the fathers.

Ye are doomed, people of Anahuac, whom I would have nurtured as an eagle nurtures her young.

Hell yawns for you and Earth refuses you because of your sins, and the remnant that remains shall be slaves from generation to generation, till the vengeance is accomplished!' Having cried thus with a great voice, Cuitlahua fell back upon the cushions, and before the frightened leech who tended him could lift his head, he had passed beyond the troubles of this earth.

But the words which he had spoken remained fixed in the hearts of those who heard them, though they were told to none except to Guatemoc.
Thus then in my presence and in that of Otomie died Cuitlahua, emperor of the Aztecs, when he had reigned but fifteen weeks.

Once more the nation mourned its king, the chief of many a thousand of its children whom the pestilence swept with him to the 'Mansions of the Sun,' or perchance to the 'darkness behind the Stars.' But the mourning was not for long, for in the urgency of the times it was necessary that a new emperor should be crowned to take command of the armies and rule the nation.