Montezuma had been in his gilded bondage but a few days when the noble chieftain Guanhpopoea, his son, and fifteen lesser Aztec chiefs, arrived in proud obedience to the summons, and in like proud, speechless submission suffered the cruel punishment decreed them by Cortes, of being burnt alive. They had but done their duty in trying to rid their sovereign of encroaching strangers, who refused all requests to leave a country to which they had not been invited. The chiefs were burnt alive in the courtyard of the Spaniards' palace; Montezuma sat manacled in an apartment above, mute with a despair only to be equalled by the shame and grief with which the heart of Montoro de Diego felt bowed to the very dust. He had saved ere now many an Indian from his threatened fate. This time he was powerless. CHAPTER XXXIX. _HOMEWARD BOUND._ "And you must leave us then, Diego--leave us on the very eve of our full and final triumph?" Hernando spoke with a mingled accent of regret and bitterness. In his reply Montoro hinted at both notes. "I wish to leave. But believe, my captain and my long-time friend, I shall part with you with grief, and although my conscience forbids my further aiding a conquest and spoliation which I deem unjust, I would not, and I dare not if I would, endeavour to be the ruler of the consciences of others." Cortes looked at him in some surprise. "How so, Diego? What sayest thou? Surely thou wouldst make me, and all of us, think as thou dost, were it but possible to thy persuasive tongue." But the answer came readily enough. "Nay then, verily," said Montoro, with tones deeper and more earnest than before; "that truly would I not. I am not omniscient. These marvellous and wide-spread conquests and slaughters are allowed by the universal Father, I know--" "Why, of course they are," came the hasty interruption. "They are undertaken for the glory of the Faith." "And," muttered Juan de Cabrera, with just a momentary twitch of his lips at the corners,--"and just a little, perchance, for the glory likewise of ourselves and our silk-lined, empty pockets." But Montoro de Diego paid no more heed to the one interruption than to the other, as he continued with scarcely a pause-- "They are allowed by the Almighty, I know, for against His will there can be nought on earth. But perchance they are also with His will, by His law, and for the spread of the knowledge of His Gospel. What mortal shall dare to judge of this? I, at least, veil my face before the mysterious workings of the Creator; and although I feel my own call henceforth to be to quieter scenes, I judge not those who, with regard to honour and humanity, shall prosecute these wars."