, and that they had promised unequivocally, the
speedy annihilation of their invading foes. This oracular declaration
was, by the order of Guatimozin, published in the hearing of the Indian
allies of his adversary. It was a politic stroke, and, if the oracle had
not imprudently fixed too early a day for the execution of the predicted
vengeance, its effect might have been such as to break for ever the
bonds of that unnatural alliance, and leave the little handful of white
men, with all their boasted pretensions to immortality, to perish by the
hands of their own friends.

But why dwell longer upon the appalling details of this miserable siege.
The day of predicted vengeance arrived, and the Spaniards survived it.
Their superstitious terror-stricken allies returned to their allegiance.
By a judicious administration of reward and discipline, of promise and
threatening, all disaffection was hushed. New measures of offence were
concerted, with a determination, on the part of the besiegers, to press
into the city by degrees, securing every step, as they advanced, by
levelling every building, and filling up every ditch, in their progress,
till not one stone should be left upon another in Tenochtitlan. This
terrible resolution was carried into effect. Every building, whether
public or private, palace, temple, or Teocalli, from which they could be
annoyed by the indomitable Aztec, was laid waste. The canals were filled
up and levelled, so as to give free scope for the movements of the
cavalry and artillery. The beautiful suburbs were reduced to a level
plain, a dry arid waste, covered with the ruins of all that was dear and
sacred in the eyes of the Aztec. Slowly, but surely, the Spaniard
pressed on towards the heart of the city, in which the heroic monarch,
with his miserable remnant of starving subjects and skeleton soldiers
were pent up, dying by thousands of famine and pestilence, and yet ready
to suffer a thousand deaths, rather than yield themselves up to the
mercy of the foe.

There was now absolutely nothing left, in earth or air, to sustain for
another day the poor remains of life in the camp of the besieged. Every
foot of ground had been dug over many times, in quest of roots, and even
of worms. The leaves and bark had been stripped from every tree and
shrub, till there was not a green thing on all those terraces, which
were once like the gardens of Elysium. The dead and the dying lay in
heaps together, for there was