necessary to fire these dwellings, in order to dislodge the assailants. This was slow work, separated as the houses were by gardens and canals. Thus the day was spent. Though many were killed, the enemy, with unabated energy and fierce war-whoops, pursued the retreating Spaniards to their citadel, and then lay down again close to its walls, to be ready for an onslaught in the morning. All their old character had returned. The Spaniards at last had a sight of the traditional Aztecs hungry for blood and desiring no greater glory than to die a warrior's death. On renewing the attack, if all the men who climbed the wall were killed, others pressed eagerly forward to take their places.
It was now resolved to appeal to Montezuma, who sat sullenly in his apartment listening to the wild storm outside, raging at times against the very walls. The unhappy chief at last mounted the parapet and consented to speak to his people.
"They will not listen to me now," he said, sadly, "nor to your false promises, Malinche."[1]
It was even so. The Aztecs, stung to madness by the tame surrender of their chief, refused to hear him. A shower of stones was aimed at him, one of which, striking him on the temple, brought him senseless to the ground. Three days afterward he died.
This account of Montezuma's death is not believed among Mexicans; they say that with two other hostages of note he was slaughtered by the Spaniards and his dead body thrown over the wall. Cortez, who speaks very indifferently of this event, says, "I gave his dead body to two Indians who were among the prisoners, and they
- ↑ Malinche, from Malintzin, the lord of Mérina, is the name by which Cortez was always known in Mexico.
