Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 2.djvu/141

 we were awaiting they gave us with great yells, saying that they wanted nothing but death. They began to discharge arrows and stones at us, and fought us very stoutly, so much so that they killed a horse with a dagger which one of them had taken from one of our friends; but finally they paid dearly for it, because many of them perished, and thus we returned that day to our camp.

The next day, we again entered into the city, and our adversaries were so reduced that an infinite number of our friends ventured to remain there during the night; having come in sight of the enemy we did not care to fight with them, but only moved about in their city, because every hour and every moment we believed that they would come to surrender. In order to persuade them, I rode near one of the barricades and called certain chiefs, who were behind them, whom I already knew, and said to them that since they saw that everything was lost, and recognised that, if I wished, none of them would escape why was it that Quatamucin their lord did not come to speak with me; that I promised to do him no harm, and if he and they wished for peace they would be well received and well treated by me. I gave them other reasons, with which I provoked them to many tears; and, weeping, they replied that they well recognised their error and perdition, and that they would go and speak to their lord and return speedily with the answer, asking me not to go away from there. So they went away, returning within a short space to tell me that, inasmuch as it was already late their lord had not come, but that at noon on the following day he would certainly come to speak with me in the market-place; so we returned to our camp. I ordered that on the next day that high square platform which stood in the middle of the market-place should be prepared for the lords and princes of the city, and that they should likewise prepare a repast for them; and this was done accordingly.