The Mexica did not believe that the god Quetzalcoatl walked among them, nor were they impressed by a vision of Mary or one of the saints. Moctezuma, the king, simply found himself in possession of less military power than the newcomers, and he recognized this. Part of the story lay in the hands of the people whom the Mexica had rendered enemies—among them a young girl whom the Spaniards called Malinche, whose people had been under fierce pressure from Moctezuma prior to the arrival of the Spaniards, and she translated for the newcomers.
