THE DEATH OF MONTEZUMA
and on them rushed the mailed strangers with their glittering steel, Cortés, as usual, to the fore. Suddenly two caciques, unarmed, flung themselves on the Spanish general, dragged him by main force to the edge of the summit, resolved to leap into death with their country's foe! But at the brink one of them stumbled, and Cortés, tearing himself away, escaped the horrible fate. At length the battle was ended. Every Aztec was slain, and forty-five of the most gallant cavaliers had perished also, while each man bore gaping wounds. "Here Cortés showed himself," said Bernal Diaz, "the man that he really was!"
The first act of the conquerors was to enter the two sanctuaries. They found, to their wrath, that the image of the Virgin Mary had been removed, but the horrible Huitzilopotchli still stood in his niche, before him his censer of smoking hearts, torn perhaps from Christian victims! Out of the chapel, across the broad summit and over the brink of the precipice the vengeful victors hurled the mighty god, while the crowds below gazed in frozen horror. Then setting fire to the sanctuary itself, they returned, unopposed, to their own quarters. And the flames, rising like banners in the sky, announced to the people in all the fair valley of Mexico that their religion was tottering to its fall.
That very night the tireless general made a sortie, and the flames of three hundred burning houses lit up the grim strangers at their work of destruction. Surely now, thought Cortés, he had proved himself master, and broken the spirit of the enemy.
