Page:Young Folks History Of Mexico.pdf/328

322 This he said with tears in his eyes and baring his breast to receive the fatal thrust. Cortez tried to reassure him, promising him his liberty in due season and a return of all the greatness which he had lost. Better had it been for the great-hearted emperor had his wish been carried into effect at that time, for he was reserved for torture and a disgraceful death by hanging, at the hands of this same deceitful captor! What he would not ask for himself he begged for his people, entreating Cortez that he would put a stop to the slaughter still going on. This he did, and when the blood thirsty allies had been restrained, the miserable remnant of Mexico's once-numerous population was allowed to file out of the plague-smitten city into the country.

[A. D. 1521.] With the fall of Guatemotzin fell the capital, and the little resistance until then offered ceased. It was at the hour of vespers, on the thirteenth of August, 1521, that this was effected, and the Spaniards found themselves in possession of the prize for which they had so long and so desperately striven. That night, the soldiers fell back to their old posts, on the outskirts of the city, which they had occupied during the seventy-five days of the siege. Many thousands of the allies had been killed, and of their own number above one hundred had been killed and sacrificed. An immense number of the Mexicans perished, according to the best authorities, not less than one hundred thousand, and of the survivors there were few that were not afflicted with wounds and disease, the result of pestilence and famine. "I have read," says the soldier-historian, Diaz, "of the destruction of Jerusalem, but I cannot conceive that the mortality there exceeded this of Mexico; for all the people from the distant provinces which belonged to this empire had concentrated themselves here, where they mostly died. The streets,