264 
GUATEMALA. 
clawed the poor Indio. All things being ready for his 
execution, he turned to the king and all the others, 
crying, “ Wait a bit, until you hear what I wish to say 
to you. Know that the time is at hand when you will 
despair at the calamities which are to come upon you, 
and that mama-caixon must die ; and know that some 
men clothed — not naked like you — from head to foot, 
and armed, men terrible and cruel, sons of Teja, will 
come, perhaps to-morrow, perhaps the next day, and will 
destroy all these palaces, and will make them dwellings 
for the owls and wildcats, and all the grandeur of this 
court shall pass away.” When he had spoken they sac¬ 
rificed him, and paid little attention to his prophecy. 
Warring here and there, suffering defeat seldom, but 
troubled with diseases and epidemics, a plague came at 
last which nearly depopulated the city of Tecpan, and 
was especially fatal among the nobility, both kings 
dying. So great was the mortality that there was not 
time to bury the dead, and they were often left to 
the vultures. 
When this scourge had passed, Achi-Balam and Belehe- 
Qat were called to the throne, and during their reign came 
the news of the terrible work of the Spaniards in Mexico. 
These young kings decided to send an embassy to the 
mighty chief of the invaders, begging his protection and 
aid against their enemies. We have to-day the letter of 
Cortez to Charles V., dated in Mexico, Ocfc. 15, 1524, de¬ 
scribing this embassy of Guatemalans to surrender their 
country and countrymen to the foreign devils who had 
destroyed their neighbors beyond the forests of the 
North. One almost feels that these wretched Cakchi- 
quels deserved the miseries they brought upon them- 
