Cortes professed himself willing to believe this, but requested that the cacique who had led the attacking force be sent for, that he might be examined. To this Montezuma consented, and handed his signet to an officer, with the brief command that Quapoca be brought to Tenochtitlan. After the officer had departed the Spanish commander proposed that, in order to prove his sincerity and place himself beyond suspicion of such an act of treachery against his Spanish friends, the king should transfer his residence to the palace occupied by them and remain as their guest until all questions in connection with this unfortunate affair should be settled. As he listened to this proposal Montezuma turned deadly pale, and then his face flushed with indignation. "Do you dare doubt my word? The word of a king!" he demanded. "Did not your majesty inform me of the death of my chief of Tlascalans but yesterday?" asked Cortes. "If I did, it is because he is dead! A king cannot lie!" was the passionate answer. "But he may be mistaken, and if so in one case, possibly in another," replied Cortes. At the same time he beckoned to Huetzin to step forward and unbonnet. The young man did so, and as the king gazed on his well-remembered features it seemed for a moment as though he would fall in a fit, so terrified and horror-stricken was his expression. For a minute he could not command his voice, then, in a low tone, he said: "The victory is thine, Malinche! So long as this son of Tlahuicol lives, the anger of the gods will not be averted from me or my kingdom. I will go with you." Cortes immediately issued orders for the royal litter to be brought, and as the nobles who bore it hesitated to obey the stranger, the king assured them that it was his pleasure to visit his white friends. As the royal train, under a strong Spanish escort, passed through the street, its nobles walking with bowed heads and sad faces, the news spread like wildfire that the king had been taken prisoner, and was being carried off by force. On every side armed men seemed to spring from the ground. Ere they were half-way to their own place, the Christians were confronted by such a furious mass of humanity that, but for the intervention of Montezuma himself, they would have been forced to fight against desperate odds. Actuated either by superstitious cowardice or policy, the king assured his tumultuous subjects that he was going, of his own free will, to visit his friends, and ordered them to retire peaceably to their homes. Thus, without a drop of bloodshed, was the powerful but superstitious monarch of the great Aztec nation taken prisoner by a handful of determined white men, and kept under their guard for months in the very heart of his own capital. It seems incredible that such could have been the case, but all historians vouch for its truth.