swings at the mercy of the wind and tide.

The people were distraught with fear of the future, but not the less on
that account, or perhaps because of it, they plunged with fervour into
pleasures, alternating them with religious ceremonies. In those days no
feast was neglected and no altar lacked its victim. Like a river that
quickens its flow as it draws near the precipice over which it must
fall, so the people of Mexico, foreseeing ruin, awoke as it were and
lived as they had never lived before. All day long the cries of victims
came from a hundred temple tops, and all night the sounds of revelry
were heard among the streets. 'Let us eat and drink,' they said, 'for
the gods of the sea are upon us and to-morrow we die.' Now women who had
been held virtuous proved themselves wantons, and men whose names were
honest showed themselves knaves, and none cried fie upon them; ay, even
children were seen drunken in the streets, which is an abomination among
the Aztecs.

The emperor had moved his household from Chapoltepec to the palace
in the great square facing the temple, and this palace was a town in
itself, for every night more than a thousand human beings slept beneath
its roof, not to speak of the dwarfs and monsters, and the hundreds of
wild birds and beasts in cages. Here every day I feasted with whom I
would, and when I was weary of feasting it was my custom to sally out
into the streets playing on the lute, for by now I had in some degree
mastered that hateful instrument, dressed in shining apparel and
attended by a crowd of nobles and royal pages. Then the people would
rush from their houses shouting and doing me reverence, the children
pelted me with flowers, and the maidens danced before me, kissing
my hands and feet, till at length I was attended by a mob a thousand
strong. And I also danced and shouted like any village fool, for I think