words, they gripped the Spaniards
with their hands and screaming with rage dragged them to the steep sides
of the roadway, purposing to cast them over. Sometimes they succeeded,
and a ball of men clinging together would roll down the slope and be
dashed to pieces on the stone flooring of the courtyard, a Spaniard
being in the centre of the ball. But do what they would, like some
vast and writhing snake, still the long array of Teules clad in their
glittering mail ploughed its way upward through the storm of spears and
arrows. Minute by minute and step by step they crept on, fighting as
men fight who know the fate that awaits the desecrators of the gods of
Anahuac, fighting for life, and honour, and safety from the stone of
sacrifice. Thus an hour went by, and the Spaniards were half way up
the pyramid. Louder and louder grew the fearful sounds of battle, the
Spaniards cheered and called on their patron saints to aid them, the
Aztecs yelled like wild beasts, the priests screamed invocations to
their gods and cries of encouragement to the warriors, while above all
rose the rattle of the arquebusses, the roar of the cannon, and the
fearful note of the great drum of snake's skin on which a half-naked
priest beat madly. Only the multitudes below never moved, nor shouted.
They stood silent gazing upward, and I could see the sunlight flash on
the thousands of their staring eyes.

Now all this while I was standing near the stone of sacrifice with
Otomie at my side. Round me were a ring of priests, and over the stone
was fixed a square of black cloth supported upon four poles, which were
set in sockets in the pavement. In the centre of this black cloth was
sewn a golden funnel measuring six inches or so across at its mouth,
and the sunbeams passing through this funnel fell in a bright patch,
the size of an apple, upon the space of pavement that was shaded by the
cloth. As the sun moved in the heavens, so did this ring of light creep
across the shadow till at length it climbed the stone of sacrifice and
lay upon its edge.

Then at a sign from the head priest, his ministers laid hold of me and
plucked what were left of my fine clothes from me as cruel boys pluck a
living bird, till I stood naked except for the paint upon my body and a
cloth about my loins. Now I knew that my hour had come, and strange
to tell, for the first time this day courage entered into me, and I
rejoiced to think that soon I should have done with my torment