Another legend said that Quetzalcoatl had been banished, but that he would return from the east just before the end of the world. This legend has been used to support the idea that the Aztec leader Moctezuma thought that the Spanish "conquistador" Cortés was Quetzalcoatl returning from exile. This would also explain why Moctezuma treated the Spanish so well. However, most historians now think that this idea was invented by the Spanish, and that Moctezuma didn't really think that Cortés was a god.