Page:Young Folks History Of Mexico.pdf/332

This page has been validated.
326
Mexico.

Expert swimmers and divers searched the places pointed out by Guatemotzin, but recovered nothing of value, except a sun of gold in a deep pond in his garden. The whole sum collected amounted to only three hundred and eighty thousand crowns, and, after deducting the shares belonging to the king and the officers, that falling to the soldiers was

BUST OF GUATEMOTZIN.

so small that few of them would take it. The most curious of the works of gold, some pearls, and a magnificent emerald, pyramid-shaped, the largest they had ever seen,—in fact, the greatest portion of the treasure,—was sent to the Emperor of Spain, Charles V. The ship containing it, and also messengers bearing letters from Cortez to the emperor,