For eight weary days the army now toiled along, struggling against hardships and hunger. Many were sick, many died, and not a few, in despair, deserted their ranks, and endeavored to find their way back to Mexico. Cortez, knowing full well the heroism of his two captives, Guatemozin and the cacique of Tacuba, was now very apprehensive that they might take advantage of his weakness, incite the natives to revolt, and thus secure his destruction. The peril was so obvious that it must have occurred to every mind. The Mexicans knew that the Spaniards were now in their power, and the Spaniards could not deny it. Under these circumstances, Guatemozin was accused of having entered into a plot to assassinate the Spaniards, and then to return to Mexico and rouse the whole native population to arms, and drive the invaders from the country. There seems to have been but little proof to substantiate the charge; but the undeniable fact that Guatemozin could now do this, excited to the highest degree the anxiety of the ever-wary Cortez. The stern conqueror, acting upon the principle that the end justifies the means, resolved to escape from this peril by the death of his imperial captive and the Tacuban lord. Cortez accused them of the crime, and, notwithstanding their protestations of innocence, ordered them both to be hung. A scaffold was immediately erected, and the victims, attended by priests, were led out to their execution. Both of these heroic men met their fate with dignity. As the monarch stood upon the scaffold, at the moment of his doom he turned to Cortez and said, "I now find in what your false promises have ended. It would have been better that I had fallen by my own hands than to have intrusted myself in your power. Why do you thus unjustly take my life? May God demand of you this innocent blood." The Prince of Tacuba simply said, "I am happy to die by the side of my lawful sovereign." They were then both swung into the air, suspended from the branches of a lofty tree by the road-side. There are many stains resting upon the character of Cortez, and this is not among the least. Diaz records, "Thus ended the lives of these two great men; and I also declare that they suffered their deaths most undeservingly; and so it appeared to us all, among whom there was but one opinion upon the subject, that it was a most unjust and cruel sentence."