CHAPTER XXVII
THE FALL OF TENOCTITLAN
Now shortly after Christmas, having marched from the coast with a greatarray of Spaniards, for many had joined his banner from over sea, andtens of thousands of native allies, Cortes took up his head quarters atTezcuco in the valley of Mexico. This town is situated near the bordersof the lake, at a distance of several leagues from Tenoctitlan, andbeing on the edge of the territory of the Tlascalans his allies, it wasmost suitable to Cortes as a base of action. And then began one of themost terrible wars that the world has seen. For eight months it raged,and when it ceased at length, Tenoctitlan, and with it many otherbeautiful and populous towns, were blackened ruins, the most of theAztecs were dead by sword and famine, and their nation was crushed forever. Of all the details of this war I do not purpose to write, for wereI to do so, there would be no end to this book, and I have my own taleto tell. These, therefore, I leave to the maker of histories. Let it beenough to say that the plan of Cortes was to destroy all her vassal andallied cities and peoples before he grappled with Mexico, queen of thevalley, and this he set himself to do with a skill, a valour, and astraightness of purpose, such as have scarcely been shown by a generalsince the days of Caesar.
Iztapalapan was the first to fall, and here ten thousand men, women, andchildren were put to the sword or burned alive. Then came the turn ofthe others; one by one Cortes reduced the cities till the whole girdleof them was in his hand, and Tenoctitlan alone remained untouched. Manyindeed surrendered, for the nations of Anahuac being of various bloodwere but as a bundle of reeds and not as a tree. Thus when the power ofSpain cut the band of empire that bound them together, they fell thisway and that, having no unity. So it came about that as the powerof Guatemoc weakened that of Cortes increased, for he garnered theseloosened reeds into his basket. And, indeed, now that the people sawthat Mexico had met her match, many an ancient hate and smoulderingrivalry broke into flame, and they fell upon her and tore her, likehalf-tamed wolves upon their master when his scourge is broken. It wasthis that brought about the fall of Anahuac. Had she remained true toherself, had she forgotten her feuds and jealousies and stood againstthe Spaniards as one man, then Tenoctitlan would never have fallen, andCortes with every Teule in his company had been stretched upon the stoneof sacrifice.
Did I not say when I took up my pen to write this book that every wrongrevenges itself at last upon the man or the people that wrought it?So it was now. Mexico was destroyed because of the abomination of theworship of her gods. These feuds between the allied peoples had theirroot in the horrible rites of human sacrifice. At some time in the past,from all these cities captives have been dragged to the altars of thegods of Mexico, there to be slaughtered and devoured by the cannibalworshippers. Now these outrages were remembered, now when the arm ofthe queen of the valley was withered, the children of those whom she hadslain rose up to slay her and to drag HER children to their altars.
By the month of May, strive as we would, and never was a more gallantfight made, all our allies were crushed or had deserted us, and thesiege of the city began. It began by land and by water, for withincredible resource Cortes caused thirteen brigantines of war to beconstructed in Tlascala, and conveyed in pieces for twenty leaguesacross the mountains to his camp, whence they were floated into the lakethrough a canal, which was hollowed out by the labour of ten thousandIndians, who worked at it without cease for two months. The bearersof these brigantines were escorted by an army of twenty thousandTlascalans, and if I could have had my way that army should have beenattacked in the mountain passes. So thought Guatemoc also, but therewere few troops to spare, for the most of our force had been despatchedto threaten a city named Chalco, that, though its people were of theAztec blood, had not been ashamed to desert the Aztec cause. Still Ioffered to lead the twenty thousand Otomies whom I commanded against theTlascalan convoy, and the matter was debated hotly at a council of war.But the most of the council were against the risking of an engagementwith the Spaniards and their allies so far from the city, and thus theopportunity went by to return no more. It was an evil fortune likethe rest, for in the end these brigantines brought about the fall ofTenoctitlan by cutting off the supply of food, which was carried incanoes across the lake. Alas! the bravest can do nothing against thepower of famine. Hunger is a very great man, as the Indians say.
Now the Aztecs fighting alone were face to face with their foes and thelast struggle began. First the Spaniards cut the aqueduct which suppliedthe city with water from the springs at the royal house of Chapoltepec,whither I was taken on being brought to Mexico. Henceforth till the endof the siege, the only water that we found to drink was the brackish andmuddy fluid furnished by the lake and wells sunk in the soil. Althoughit might be drunk after boiling to free it of the salt, it wasunwholesome and filthy to the taste, breeding various painful sicknessesand fevers. It was on this day of the cutting of the aqueduct thatOtomie bore me a son, our first-born. Already the hardships of the siegewere so great and nourishing food so scarce, that had she been lessstrong, or had I possessed less skill in medicine, I think that shewould have died. Still she recovered to my great thankfulness and joy,and though I am no clerk I baptized the boy into the Christian Churchwith my own hand, naming him Thomas after me.
Now day by day and week by week the fighting went on with varyingsuccess, sometimes in the suburbs of the city, sometimes on the lake,and sometimes in the very streets. Time on time the Spaniards weredriven back with loss, time on time they advanced again from theirdifferent camps. Once we captured sixty of them and more than a thousandof their allies. All these were sacrificed on the altar of Huitzel,and given over to be devoured by the Aztecs according to the beastlikecustom which in Anahuac enjoined the eating of the bodies of those whowere offered to the gods, not because the Indians love such meat but fora secret religious reason.
In vain did I pray Guatemoc to forego this horror.
'Is this a time for gentleness?' he answered fiercely. 'I cannot savethem from the altar, and I would not if I could. Let the dogs dieaccording to the custom of the land, and to you, Teule my brother, I saypresume not too far.'
Alas! the heart of Guatemoc grew ever fiercer as the struggle wore on,and indeed it was little to be wondered at.
This was the dreadful plan of Cortes: to destroy the city piecemeal ashe advanced towards its heart, and it was carried out without mercy.So soon as the Spaniards got footing in a quarter, thousands of theTlascalans were set to work to fire the houses and burn all in themalive. Before the siege was done Tenoctitlan, queen of the valley, wasbut a heap of blackened ruins. Cortes might have cried over Mexico withIsaiah the prophet: 'Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and thenoise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee and the worms coverthee. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!how art thou cut down to the ground which didst weaken the nations!'
In all these fights I took my part, though it does not become me toboast my prowess. Still the Spaniards knew me well and they had goodreason. Whenever they saw me they would greet me with revilings, callingme 'traitor and renegade,' and 'Guatemoc's white dog,' and moreover,Cortes set a price upon my head, for he knew through his spies thatsome of Guatemoc's most successful attacks and stratagems had been ofmy devising. But I took no heed even when their insults pierced me likearrows, for though many of the Aztecs were my friends and I hatedthe Spaniards, it was a shameful thing that a Christian man should bewarring on the side of cannibals who made human sacrifice. I took noheed, since always I was seeking for my foe de Garcia. He was there Iknew, for I saw him many times, but I could never come at him. Indeed,if I watched for him he also watched for me, but with another purpose,to avoid me. For now as of old de Garcia feared me, now as of old hebelieved that I should bring his death upon him.
It was the custom of warriors in the opposing armies to send challengesto single combat, one to another, and many such duels were fought inthe sight of all, safe conduct being given to the combatants and theirsecond
s. Upon a day, despairing of meeting him face to face in battle,I sent a challenge to de Garcia by a herald, under his false name ofSarceda. In an hour the herald returned with this message written onpaper in Spanish:
'Christian men do not fight duels with renegade heathen dogs, whiteworshippers of devils and eaters of human flesh. There is but oneweapon which such cannot defile, a rope, and it waits for you, ThomasWingfield.'
I tore the writing to pieces and stamped upon it in my rage, for now,to all his other crimes against me, de Garcia had added the blackestinsult. But wrath availed me nothing, for I could never come near him,though once, with ten of my Otomies, I charged into the heart of theSpanish column after him.
From that rush I alone escaped alive, the ten Otomies were sacrificed tomy hate.
How shall I paint the horrors that day by day were heaped upon thedoomed city? Soon all the food was gone, and men, ay, and worse still,tender women and children, must eat such meat as swine would have turnedfrom, striving to keep life in them for a little longer. Grass, the barkof trees, slugs and insects, washed down with brackish water fromthe lake, these were their best food, these and the flesh of captivesoffered in sacrifice. Now they began to die by hundreds and bythousands, they died so fast that none could bury them. Where theyperished, there they lay, till at length their bodies bred a plague,a black and horrible fever that swept off thousands more, who in turnbecame the root of pestilence. For one who was killed by the Spaniardsand their allies, two were swept off by hunger and plague. Think thenwhat was the number of dead when not less than seventy thousand perishedbeneath the sword and by fire alone. Indeed, it is said that fortythousand died in this manner in a single day, the day before the last ofthe siege.
One night I came back to the lodging where Otomie dwelt with her royalsister Tecuichpo, the wife of Guatemoc, for now all the palaces had beenburnt down. I was starving, for I had scarcely tasted food for fortyhours, but all that my wife could set before me were three little mealcakes, or tortillas, mixed with bark. She kissed me and bade me eatthem, but I discovered that she herself had touched no food that day, soI would not till she shared them. Then I noted that she could scarcelyswallow the bitter morsels, and also that she strove to hide tears whichran down her face.
'What is it, wife?' I asked.
Then Otomie broke out into a great and bitter crying and said:
'This, my beloved: for two days the milk has been dry in mybreast--hunger has dried it--and our babe is dead! Look, he lies dead!'and she drew aside a cloth and showed me the tiny body.
'Hush,' I said, 'he is spared much. Can we then desire that a childshould live to see such days as we have seen, and after all, to die atlast?'
'He was our son, our first-born,' she cried again. 'Oh! why must wesuffer thus?'
'We must suffer, Otomie, because we are born to it. Just so muchhappiness is given to us as shall save us from madness and no more. Askme not why, for I cannot answer you! There is no answer in my faith orin any other.'
And then, looking on that dead babe, I wept also. Every hour in thoseterrible months it was my lot to see a thousand sights more awful, andyet this sight of a dead infant moved me the most of all of them. Thechild was mine, my firstborn, its mother wept beside me, and its stiffand tiny fingers seemed to drag at my heart strings. Seek not the cause,for the Almighty Who gave the heart its infinite power of pain alone cananswer, and to our ears He is dumb.
Then I took a mattock and dug a hole outside the house till I came towater, which in Tenoctitlan is found at a depth of two feet or so. And,having muttered a prayer over him, there in the water I laid the body ofour child, burying it out of sight. At the least he was not left for thezapilotes, as the Aztecs call the vultures, like the rest of them.
After that we wept ourselves to sleep in each other's arms, Otomiemurmuring from time to time, 'Oh! my husband, I would that we wereasleep and forgotten, we and the babe together.'
'Rest now,' I answered, 'for death is very near to us.'
The morrow came, and with it a deadlier fray than any that had gonebefore, and after it more morrows and more deaths, but still we livedon, for Guatemoc gave us of his food. Then Cortes sent his heraldsdemanding our surrender, and now three-fourths of the city was a ruin,and three-fourths of its defenders were dead. The dead were heaped inthe houses like bees stifled in a hive, and in the streets they lay sothick that we walked upon them.
The council was summoned--fierce men, haggard with hunger and with war,and they considered the offer of Cortes.
'What is your word, Guatemoc?' said their spokesman at last.
'Am I Montezuma, that you ask me? I swore to defend this city to thelast,' he answered hoarsely, 'and, for my part, I will defend it. Betterthat we should all die, than that we should fall living into the handsof the Teules.'
'So say we,' they replied, and the war went on.
At length there came a day when the Spaniards made a new attack andgained another portion of the city. There the people were huddledtogether like sheep in a pen. We strove to defend them, but our armswere weak with famine. They fired into us with their pieces, mowing usdown like corn before the sickle. Then the Tlascalans were loosed uponus, like fierce hounds upon a defenceless buck, and on this day it issaid that there died forty thousand people, for none were spared. Onthe morrow, it was the last day of the siege, came a fresh embassy fromCortes, asking that Guatemoc should meet him. The answer was the same,for nothing could conquer that noble spirit.
'Tell him,' said Guatemoc, 'that I will die where I am, but that I willhold no parley with him. We are helpless, let Cortes work his pleasureon us.'
By now all the city was destroyed, and we who remained alive within itsbounds were gathered on the causeways and behind the ruins of walls;men, women, and children together.
Here they attacked us again. The great drum on the teocalli beat for thelast time, and for the last time the wild scream of the Aztec warriorswent up to heaven. We fought our best; I killed four men that day withmy arrows which Otomie, who was at my side, handed me as I shot. But themost of us had not the strength of a child, and what could we do? Theycame among us like seamen among a flock of seals, and slaughtered us byhundreds. They drove us into the canals and trod us to death there, tillbridges were made of our bodies. How we escaped I do not know.
At length a party of us, among whom was Guatemoc with his wifeTecuichpo, were driven to the shores of the lake where lay canoes, andinto these we entered, scarcely knowing what we did, but thinking thatwe might escape, for now all the city was taken. The brigantines saw usand sailed after us with a favouring wind--the wind always favoured thefoe in that war--and row as we would, one of them came up with us andbegan to fire into us. Then Guatemoc stood up and spoke, saying:
'I am Guatemoc. Bring me to Malinche. But spare those of my people whoremain alive.'
'Now,' I said to Otomie at my side, 'my hour has come, for the Spaniardswill surely hang me, and it is in my mind, wife, that I should do wellto kill myself, so that I may be saved from a death of shame.'
'Nay, husband,' she answered sadly, 'as I said in bygone days, while youlive there is hope, but the dead come back no more. Fortune may favourus yet; still, if you think otherwise, I am ready to die.'
'That I will not suffer, Otomie.'
'Then you must hold your hand, husband, for now as always, where you go,I follow.'
'Listen,' I whispered; 'do not let it be known that you are my wife;pass yourself as one of the ladies of Tecuichpo, the queen, your sister.If we are separated, and if by any chance I escape, I will try to makemy way to the City of Pines. There, among your own people, we may findrefuge.'
'So be it, beloved,' she answered, smiling sadly. 'But I do not knowhow the Otomie will receive me, who have led twenty thousand of theirbravest men to a dreadful death.'
Now we were on the deck of the brigantine and must stop talking, andthence, after the Spaniards had quarrelled over us a while, we weretaken ashore and led to the top of a house which still
stood, whereCortes had made ready hurriedly to receive his royal prisoner.Surrounded by his escort, the Spanish general stood, cap in hand, and byhis side was Marina, grown more lovely than before, whom I now met forthe first time since we had parted in Tobasco.
Our eyes met and she started, thereby showing that she knew me again,though it must have been hard for Marina to recognise her friend Teulein the blood-stained, starving, and tattered wretch who could scarcelyfind strength to climb the azotea. But at that time no words passedbetween us, for all eyes were bent on the meeting between Cortes andGuatemoc, between the conqueror and the conquered.
Still proud and defiant, though he seemed but a living skeleton,Guatemoc walked straight to where the Spaniard stood, and spoke, Marinatranslating his words.
'I am Guatemoc, the emperor, Malinche,' he said. 'What a man might do todefend his people, I have done. Look on the fruits of my labour,' andhe pointed to the blackened ruins of Tenoctitlan that stretched on everyside far as the eye could reach. 'Now I have come to this pass, for thegods themselves have been against me. Deal with me as you will, but itwill be best that you kill me now,' and he touched the dagger of Corteswith his hand, 'and thus rid me swiftly of the misery of life.'
'Fear not, Guatemoc,' answered Cortes. 'You have fought like a braveman, and such I honour. With me you are safe, for we Spaniards love agallant foe. See, here is food,' and he pointed to a table spread withsuch viands as we had not seen for many a week; 'eat, you and yourcompanions together, for you must need it. Afterwards we will talk.'
So we ate, and heartily, I for my part thinking that it would be well todie upon a full stomach, having faced death so long upon an empty one,and while we devoured the meat the Spaniards stood on one side scanningus, not without pity. Presently, Tecuichpo was brought beforeCortes, and with her Otomie and some six other ladies. He greeted hergraciously, and they also were given to eat. Now, one of the Spaniardswho had been watching me whispered something into the ear of Cortes, andI saw his face darken.
'Say,' he said to me in Castilian, 'are you that renegade, that traitorwho has aided these Aztecs against us?'
'I am no renegade and no traitor, general,' I answered boldly, for thefood and wine had put new life into me. 'I am an Englishman, and I havefought with the Aztecs because I have good cause to hate you Spaniards.'
'You shall soon have better, traitor,' he said furiously. 'Here, leadthis man away and hang him on the mast of yonder ship.'
Now I saw that it was finished, and made ready to go to my death, whenMarina spoke into the ear of Cortes. All she said I could not catch, butI heard the words 'hidden gold.' He listened, then hesitated, and spokealoud: 'Do not hang this man to-day. Let him be safely guarded. TomorrowI will inquire into his case.'