alans had fallen into their hands. As
for these unlucky prisoners, their end was swift, for they were taken at
once to the temples of the great teocalli, and sacrificed there to the
gods in the sight of their comrades.

Now it was that Cortes returned with many more men, for he had conquered
Narvaez, whose followers joined the standard of Cortes, and with them
others, one of whom I had good reason to know. Cortes was suffered to
rejoin his comrades in the palace of Axa without attack, I do not know
why, and on the following day Cuitlahua, Montezuma's brother, king
of Palapan, was released by him that he might soothe the people. But
Cuitlahua was no coward. Once safe outside his prison walls, he called
the council together, of whom the chief was Guatemoc.

There they resolved on war to the end, giving it out that Montezuma had
forfeited his kingdom by his cowardice, and on that resolve they acted.
Had it been taken but two short months before, by this date no Spaniard
would have been left alive in Tenoctitlan. For after Marina, the love of
Cortes, whose subtle wit brought about his triumph, it was Montezuma
who was the chief cause of his own fall, and of that of the kingdom of
Anahuac.

CHAPTER XX

OTOMIE'S COUNSEL

On the day after the return of Cortes to Mexico, before the hour of
dawn I was awakened from my uneasy slumbers by the whistling cries of
thousands of warriors and the sound of atabals and drums.

Hurrying to my post of outlook on the little pyramid, where Otomie
joined me, I saw that the whole people were gathered for war. So far
as the eye could reach, in square, market place, and street, they were
massed in thousands and tens of thousands. Some were armed with slings,
some with bows and arrows, others with javelins tipped with copper,
and the club set with spikes of obsidian that is called maqua, and yet
others, citizens of the poorer sort, with stakes hardened in the fire.
The bodies of some were covered with golden coats of mail and mantles of
featherwork, and their skulls protected by painted wooden helms,
crested with hair, and fashioned like the heads of pumas, snakes, or
wolves--others wore escaupils, or coats of quilted cotton, but the
most of them were naked except for a cloth about the loins. On the flat
azoteas, or roofs of houses also, and even on the top of the teocalli of
sacrifice, were bands of men whose part it was to rain missiles into the
Spanish quarters. It was a strange si