The officer who had charge of the expedition to the Tezcucan palace, with a view to taking Hualcoyotl's life, was greatly chagrined at the effectual manner in which he was tricked. After exhausting his ingenuity in futile efforts to find a clue to the prince's mysterious disappearance, he placed a guard over the palace and returned in haste to his master, the king, to whom he reported the failure of his mission, but in such manner as to save his own head, which would no doubt have been required of him for his incautiousness, had the king been correctly informed.
Maxtla became greatly enraged when he learned of the failure of the expedition and escape of his hated rival. Troops of armed men were ordered to scour the country in every direction in search of him, and, in addition, a large reward was offered for his capture, dead or alive. The hand of a noble lady, and a rich domain to accompany it, was promised to whoever should take him, regardless of the captor's previous condition in life.
The perils to which the prince was being subjected by his powerful enemy, and the persistent efforts made to destroy him, were becoming generally known. Among his friends--the Tezcucans, who were deeply incensed at the unjust treatment of their favorite--a latent hatred of everything Tepanec was being wrought into a feeling of antagonism, which was rapidly engendering a spirit of resistance to the relentless and malicious persecutor.
"Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad," was assuredly exemplified in the brief and despotic career of the tyrant Maxtla; for by his unkingly conduct toward the unoffending Hualcoyotl he was digging a pit, so to speak, broad and deep, which would engulf not only himself, but his nation as well, of whose proud capital, the royal city of Azcapozalco, no vestige would remain to mark the spot whereon it stood; nor track, nor trace of all the mighty host of those o'er whom by right he ruled, but only waste and desolated space, on which, to emphasize a conqueror's hate, it was decreed the slave-man's mart should be.[5]
[5] NOTE.--The royal city of Azcapozalco was razed to the ground, and the wasted territory was henceforth reserved as the great slave-mart for the nations of Anahuac.--_Prescott_.