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Midnight was approaching. The streets and avenues were silent and deserted. The retreat proceeded cautiously for a little way, unmolested, when suddenly a deep, booming sound roared like thunder over the heads of the Spaniards, through the black night, filling their hearts with alarm. Cortes recognized it at once. The Aztecs were awake and ready.
The work of the noble Franciscan and Dominican monks who followed closely upon Cortes, and devoted their lives to the spiritual welfare of the Mexicans, is a more attractive subject than any picture of military conquest. To this point I shall return hereafter, when we come to consider the sublime character of Las Casas.
One Cortes after another protested, measures were adopted which sought to bring the nation to its senses, new sumptuary laws were enacted, but all to no avail; for the nobility continued to set an example of glittering prodigality, and the common people were not slow to follow. When another Philip, the fourth of this name, came to the throne in 1621, the situation was almost hopeless.
Cortés responded by the most profound expressions of respect and gratitude for all Montezuma's munificence to the Spaniards; he then hung round the emperor's neck a chain of coloured crystal, making at the same time a movement as if to embrace him, but was restrained by the two Aztec lords, who were shocked at the idea of such presumption.
Though by comparison few in numbers, the Spaniards, who were protected by coats of mail, made great havoc with their guns and horses. The battle between these unequal forces raged with great fury, and for a time the result was uncertain. Cortes compelled Montezuma, his prisoner, to show himself on the roof of his house and try to persuade the Aztecs to stop fighting.
"The radicals have made the discovery that a centralised republic is a monarchy in disguise, and to humour them the Cortes had unanimously proclaimed a FEDERAL REPUBLIC, though none of the voters could have explained what it was he had just voted for. This formula, however, delighted everybody; the joy was intoxicating, delirious.
He determined, therefore, to prevent any seditious attempt by securing the person of the emperor, and using him as a hostage. Cortès profited by these events to accuse the emperor of perfidy.
Marina learnt among other things to love Cortes, whose fortunes she followed and whom she served with an absolute, unquestioning, blind devotion and fidelity until the end. So absolute was this attachment of hers that Cortes became known to the Aztecs as the Lord of Marina.
To which the devil, stopping the cart, answered quietly, "Senor, we are players of Angulo el Malo's company; we have been acting the play of 'The Cortes of Death' this morning, which is the octave of Corpus Christi, in a village behind that hill, and we have to act it this afternoon in that village which you can see from this; and as it is so near, and to save the trouble of undressing and dressing again, we go in the costumes in which we perform.
Their learned men occupied important stations as physicians, agents of government, and even officers of state; while the "New Christians," or Jews professedly converted to Christianity, were intermarried with the highest families in Spain, and all this had taken place in spite of the enmity of the clergy, popular bigotry, and the adverse legislation of cortes or parliaments.
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