Page:The Mastering of Mexico.djvu/367

Rh helpful purposes, and with thanks to God for the many benefits shown us.

The first service Cortes asked of Guatemoc was that the Mexicans at once repair the water-pipes leading from Chapultepec and supplying the city with fresh water. The next was that they clean the streets and all parts of the town of all remains of the dead, repair all the bridges and causeways, rebuild the houses and palaces we had pulled down, and after two months that they return and dwell in the city—Cortes marking out what part they were to live in and what part they were to leave for our use. For our own work our captain ordered a dock made to harbor our sloops, and a fort, also, and if I remember rightly he appointed Alvarado to take command of this till our king's officer should come from Spain.

We all agreed that the gold, silver, and jewels left in Mexico should be got together. There was little seemingly. Report went that four days before we captured him Guatemoc had thrown all the treasure in the lake. Then, too, the Tlaxcalans, and the rest of our Indian auxiliaries in the siege, besides those of our own number who went about in the sloops, had laid their hands on it. Still officers of the royal treasury declared that Guatemoc had hidden the greater part, and that Cortes was delighted and he would not say where it was concealed, for he would