Page:Romance of History, Mexico.djvu/254

 without orders, purloining booty without leave, were all crimes to be punished with great severity. Every soldier was to remember that the conversion of the heathen was the great object of the expedition, "without which the war would be manifestly unjust, and every acquisition made by it a robbery."

On the 28th of December, Innocents' Day, six hundred Spaniards passed in review before their general with trumpets sounding and colours flying. There were forty horsemen, eighty gunners and cross-bowmen, and nine cannon. Then came the gorgeous array of Tlascalans, led by the four great chiefs of the republic. So great was the multitude of allies indeed, that the general, thinking of provisions, did not dare to take them all with him on his march to the valley of Mexico.

Once more Spaniard and Tlascalan climbed together the mountain barrier and gained unchallenged the summit of the pass. Once more they paused in the difficult descent to gaze on the sun-bathed valley. Bitterly the veterans recalled their sufferings and their comrades lost, and thought with savage joy of vengeance for the past. "It made us feel," said Cortés, "that we had no choice but victory or death, and our minds once resolved we moved forward with as light a step as if we had been on an errand of certain pleasure."

The general had decided to make his headquarters in Tezcuco, whence he could prepare for the investment of Mexico by subduing the surrounding country and thus cutting off supplies. He did not intend to attempt an assault on the capital itself until the 218