Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 2.djvu/146

 decision but that I could do as I pleased. Recognising by this his determination, I told him to return to his own people, and that he and they might prepare themselves, as I was determined to attack them, and finish destroying them; and so it happened. More than five hours had passed in these parleyings, and the inhabitants of the city were all treading on the dead, others in the water were swimming, and others drowning themselves in the large lake where the canoes were collected. Such was the plight in which they were, that no understanding could conceive how they could endure it; and an infinite number of men, women, and children kept coming towards us, who, in their haste, pushed one another back into the water and were drowned amidst the multitude of dead. It appears they had perished to the number of more than fifty thousand, from the salt water which they drank, or from starvation, and pestilence. All these bodies, (in order that we should not understand their extremity), were neither thrown into the water lest the brigantines might come across them, nor were they thrown outside their boundary, lest we should see them about the city; and thus, in the streets they occupied, were found heaps of dead, so that nobody could step without trampling them. As the people of the city came towards us, I ordered Spaniards to be stationed in all the streets, to prevent our allies from killing those unhappy creatures, who were beyond number; and I also ordered the captains of our allies not to allow in any way those fugitives to be killed, but, as they were so many, it was not possible to prevent it that day, so more than fifteen thousand persons were massacred. Meanwhile, some of the chiefs and warriors of the city were brought to bay on some roofs and in the water, where they could no longer stop, or hide from us all their disasters and their weakness which had become very apparent; and, seeing that the afternoon was coming on us, and that they would not