Page:The Mastering of Mexico.djvu/131

Rh them their lives. We were all armed, as was our wont.

The Indians turned the question one way and another. They feared Montezuma's power, which might any day fall on them, and they finally answered that they were not worthy to lay hands on the idol symbols of their gods and they would never give their consent to our doing so; but if we dared to overthrow them they supposed we must.

The words were scarcely out of their mouths before fifty of us were running up the steps of the temple. The idols, horrible to look at and shaped half like men and half great dog, and about the size of young calves, we tore from their foundations and sent them tumbling down and crashing in many pieces.

When the caciques and papas beheld the monsters in fragments on the ground, covering their eyes they set up a howl and prayed their gods to forgive them. The blame was not theirs, they cried, but these teules' whom they dared not attack for fear of Montezuma. This the papas and caciques did, but the warriors among them began flying arrows at us. In so serious a turn we seized the fat cacique and six papas, and Cortes declared that if the attack were not stayed, the seven should forfeit their lives. When at last quiet reigned Cortes ordered the broken idols completely destroyed, whereupon eight papas came out of a