Page:The Mastering of Mexico.djvu/206

170 When Cortes heard this protest, and saw the excitement of the monarch and the two papas who stood by, he said in cheerful wise to Montezuma, "It is time for us to go." Montezuma answered that he would not keep us longer, but he himself must stay and atone to his gods by prayer and sacrifice for his sin in permitting us to ascend the great temple and affront them. "In that case," returned Cortes, "I ask your pardon." Upon that we descended.

A little apart from the chief temple was another small tower, also an idol house. Rather I should term it a temple of hell, for at one of its doors was a terrible demon mouth fitted with great fangs. Near it also stood figures of devils and serpents, and an altar encrusted with blood and black with smoke. Further within were dishes and other basins in which the priests cooked the flesh of the unfortunates whom they sacrificed—the flesh they themselves ate. Near the altar were knives and wooden blocks such as those they cut meat upon in slaughter houses, and behind that cursed house lay piles of firewood and a tank of running water. I called the place "The House of Satan."

Beyond the splendid courtyard stood another temple, stained with blood and smoke, where great Mexican caciques were buried, and another holding human skulls and bones piled in orderly fashion. Here also other idols, and other priests clad in long