Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 1.djvu/373

 

was Pedro de Alvarado. Simultaneously four messengers arrived from Montezuma to complain that the captain had ordered an unprovoked attack upon the Mexicans during a religious festival, and that the latter had merely defended themselves as best they could. The feast of Toxcatl fell upon the tenth of May, and only the highest and noblest adorned with their richest ornaments, but unarmed, took part in the ceremonial dance. Cortes had consented, before he left Mexico, to the usual celebration, with the proviso that there should be no human sacrifices, though very likely the priests reserved their intention to perform that part of the rites privately. The first contrariety arose from Alvarado's refusal to allow the statue of Huitzilopochtli to be restored to its former place, from which it had been ejected to make room for the altars to the Blessed Virgin and St. Christopher. The Tlascalans next excited his suspicions that the festival was merely a pretext to collect a large multitude in the city, the real object being to fall upon the diminished garrison and exterminate it. On the day of the feast, Alvarado and others saw certain idols, decked out for the procession, standing in the court of the temple, and also three youths in new robes and with shaven heads, which indicated that they were destined for sacrifice. Alvarado seized the intended victims, and, by putting them to worse tortures than those of the sacrificial stone, under which one of them died, he obtained such testimony as he wanted from the other two, who were mere lads, to prove that a general revolt was planned. What these poor creatures could be supposed to know of such conspiracies does not appear, but Alvarado was satisfied, and, arming his men, he left some in charge of Montezuma, with orders to kill the nobles who were with him, and repaired with the others to the great teocalli, where six hundred nobles and priests were dancing, while some three thousand others assisted as spectators. The appearance of the Spaniards caused no interruption, but, at a given signal, they drew their weapons and fell upon the defenceless people, slaughtering them without quarter; the doors were guarded, so few escaped, but they gave the alarm and roused the city. Meanwhile the nobles of the court had been slain, and the Spaniards had fortified themselves inside their quarters. The exact place where the dance took place is uncertain, as neither Cortes nor Bernal Diaz mentions