Page:Romance of History, Mexico.djvu/293

 them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them."

Appalling even to the conquerors seemed the hideous downfall of the magnificent buildings which had once so aroused their wonder and admiration. "It was a sad thing to see their destruction," says Cortés himself, "but it was part of our plan of operations, and we had no alternative."

As the Spaniards drew near the quarter of the city where the Aztecs were still holding out, ghastly were the sights which met their eyes. The starving people had even devoured the bark and leaves off the trees, and had torn up the ground searching for roots and weeds. With dead and dying the streets were strewn, for the living were too few to bury the multitude who perished daily by famine and pestilence. To the Aztecs funeral rites had ever been very sacred, and bitter it was to leave their dead to be trampled into the dust by the foe or devoured by birds of prey. Too anguished now they were even to bear the corpses within the shelter of the houses, and worse than ever grew the black and horrible plague.

More harrowing still were the sights within the dwellings, where women, children, and sick or wounded men lay helpless to fight or fly. Cortés gave orders that the mercy for which they scorned to ask should be shown to these wretched creatures, but the allies in the fierceness of victory were beyond control, and all alike were buried in the burning ruins.

And now only one broad canal separated the general and his division from the great market-place 253