and heard the song of the musicians. It was a gay sight, for in the
bright sunlight their feather dresses flashed like coats of gems, and
none would have guessed how it was to end. Mingling with the dancers
were groups of Spaniards clad in mail and armed with swords and
matchlocks, but I noted that, as the time went on, these men separated
themselves from the Indians and began to cluster like bees about the
gates and at various points under the shadow of the Wall of Serpents.

'Now what may this mean?' I said to Guatemoc, and as I spoke, I saw a
Spaniard wave a white cloth in the air. Then, in an instant, before the
cloth had ceased to flutter, a smoke arose from every side, and with it
came the sound of the firing of matchlocks. Everywhere among the dancers
men fell dead or wounded, but the mass of them, unharmed as yet,
huddled themselves together like frightened sheep, and stood silent and
terror-stricken. Then the Spaniards, shouting the name of their patron
saint, as it is their custom to do when they have some such wickedness
in hand, drew their swords, and rushing on the unarmed Aztec nobles
began to kill them. Now some shrieked and fled, and some stood still
till they were cut down, but whether they stayed or ran the end was the
same, for the gates were guarded and the wall was too high to climb.
There they were slaughtered every man of them, and may God, who sees
all, reward their murderers! It was soon over; within ten minutes of
the waving of the cloth, those six hundred men were stretched upon the
pavement dead or dying, and with shouts of victory the Spaniards were
despoiling their corpses of the rich ornaments they had worn.

Then I turned to Guatemoc and said, 'It seems that you did well not to
join in yonder revel.'

But Guatemoc made no answer. He stared at the dead and those who had