THE ROMANCE OF MEXICO
have a people shown more desperate devotion to their country and their prince than this strange race of civilised barbarians hidden for so long from the eyes of Europe in their beautiful valley in the heart of the great New World.
Day dawned on a pitiful sight. By command of Cortés the survivors were suffered to leave the city unmolested, and miserable creatures, "whom it was a grief to behold," dragged themselves feebly along the causeways, the strongest supporting the weak. When they had all gone, the work of cleansing the city was taken in hand.
"It is true, and I swear 'Amen' to it," says Bernal Diaz, "that all the lake and the houses and the barbicans were full of the bodies of dead men so that I do not know how I may describe it. In the streets and in the courts there were no other things, and we could not step without treading on them. I have read of the destruction of Jerusalem, but whether there was such a mortality in that I do not know."
With the victors feasting and riot now took the place of vigils, fasts, and battles. The general gave a banquet to all his officers and cavaliers. Father Olmedo was much distressed at the unseemly revelry, and sought to check it through Sandoval, always upright and sober. But even Cortés himself dared not now interfere with his turbulent followers, who considered that by hard work they had earned a time of gaiety and licence.
The next morning the victory was celebrated by a solemn procession of the whole army with Father
