The Aztec Treasure-House by Thomas A. Janvier

Neither the Council, in its irresolute parleyings, nor Fray Antonio, in his resolute action, had at all considered certain factors which they themselves had interjected into the problem that they then were dealing with from such widely different stand-points and in such widely different ways. The Council, at a stroke, had transformed the Tlahuicos into soldiers, and had given the promise that in reward for their faithfulness and valor these slaves thenceforward should be freemen. Fray Antonio had preached to all those assembled at Huitzilan a creed that had taken strong hold upon many hearts, and that especially had won the hearts of those of the long-oppressed servile class -- to whom its doctrine of equality seemed to hold out an absolute assurance that their life of slavery was at an end.

When, therefore, the terms which the Priest Captain offered were spread abroad through the town, and through the camp close beside the town in which the army lay -- being there in readiness instantly to occupy the Citadel should the enemy appear -- a very lively anger was aroused because such terms should even be listened to. For what the Priest Captain demanded was that the apostle of the new religion should be relinquished to him to be slain as a sacrifice to the Aztec gods, and that once more the Tlahuicos should be thrust back into slavery; while what he conceded -- in that it affected only the higher classes -- made the lot of the Tlahuicos but the more unjustly cruel and hard to bear.