Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/198

190 your own house, rest and refresh yourselves after the toils of the journey. I believe that the Totonacs and Tlascalans have told you much evil of us, but do not believe them. They are our enemies. They have told you that my house and my furniture are of gold, that I myself am a god. But you see it is not so;" and he opened his robes as he spoke. "You see that I am flesh and blood like yourselves."

Once more assuring Cortez with much apparent sincerity that he was in his own home and, with his army, would be bountifully supplied with all that he needed, Montezuma concluded his long address and went away.

The quarters assigned to the army were in one of the communal dwellings already described, which, with its hundreds of rooms, was large enough to hold them all. It was very near the great temple, was two stories high in the centre, with many spacious apartments, and had loopholed towers along its walls. Some of these great rooms were hung with gayly-tinted draperies and had inlaid floors and ceilings of smoothly-polished wood. But little furniture was required, since bed and bedding commonly consisted of a mat wrapped about the sleeper, who stretched himself on the stone floor. Other beds were canopied and had soft cotton coverlets.

The Aztecs provided well for their unwelcome guests. A hot supper was spread for all, and the men turned in for the night after taking every precaution against attack. Cannon were planted at each entrance, and the sentinels had orders to shoot any man who left the quarters without permission from the general. It was usual to fire an evening-gun, but the first night which the Spaniards spent in Mexico was celebrated by the most thunderous discharge of artillery it was in their power to make. The whole