Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 2.djvu/140

 three or four other chiefs of the city, for the others, dead or alive, all desired to be out of it. And when I arrived at the barricade, they told me that, as they held me to be the son of the sun, and as the sun in such brief period as a day and a night, made the circuit of the entire world, I ought likewise to finish killing them speedily and save them from so much suffering, because they wished to die and go to heaven to their Ochilobus, who was awaiting to give them rest; this being the idol which they hold in the greatest reverence. I said many things in reply to persuade them to surrender, and nothing availed with them, although they perceived in us greater wishes and offers for peace than had ever been shown to any other vanquished, for with the help of Our Lord we were the victors.

Having reduced the enemy to the last extremity, as may be gathered from what has been said, and in order  Renewed Proposals of Peace. to win them from their evil intention, which was their determination to die, I spoke to one of their noble chiefs, the uncle of Don Fernando, lord of Tesaico, who had been captured fighting in the city, and whom we held prisoner. Although badly wounded I asked him if he wished to return to the city, and he answered me, "yes," and, when we entered it the next day, I sent him, with certain Spaniards, who delivered him to the people of the city; and, to their chief, I had spoken exclusively in order that he might talk to the sovereign and the other chiefs about peace, and he promised to do everything that was possible. The people of the city received him with much deference as a nobleman, and, when they took him before Quatamucin, their sovereign, and he began to speak of peace, it is said they immediately ordered him to be killed and sacrificed, and the answer