awakens a thrill of admiration, although we are fully aware of their
fearful and ferocious and degrading religious rites. Again and again
the heart-sick Spaniards saw lifted up before the hideous gods on the
temple pyramids, the white, naked bodies of their unfortunate comrades
who had been captured for that awful sacrifice. Both parties were
wrought up to a pitch of furious rage.

No valor, no heroism, no courage, no devotion could prevail against
thirst, hunger, smallpox, pestilence, the fever of besieged towns, with
the streets filled with unburied dead. On August 13, 1521, the city
fell. There was no formal surrender, the last defender had been
killed. The old, weak and feeble were left. Only a small portion of
the city, the {216} cheapest and poorest part, was left standing. Into
this ghastly street rode the Spaniards.

Where was Guatemoc? A wretched, haggard, worn, starved figure, having
done all that humanity could do, and apparently more, in the defence of
his land, he had striven to escape in a canoe on the lake. One of the
brigantines overhauled him. The commander was about to make way with
the little party when some one informed him that the principal captive
was no less than Guatemotzin. The unfortunate young emperor, after
vainly trying to persuade Garcia Holguin to kill him then and there,
demanded to be led to Cortes. He found that great captain on one of
the house-tops, watching the slaughter of the men and women and
children by the furious Tlascalans who were at last feeding fat their
revenge by indiscriminate massacre.

"Deal with me as you please," said the broken-hearted Mexican, as he
touched the dagger which hung by Cortes's side. "Kill me at once," he
implored.

He had no wish to survive the downfall of his empire, the devastation
of his city, and the annihilation of his people. Cortes spared his
life and at first treated him generously. He afterward marred his
reputation by yielding him and the Cacique of Tlacuba to torture at the
urgent and insistent demand of the soldiery. There was no treasure
found in the city. It had been spirited away or else buried forever
beneath the ruins of the town.[13] The soldiers, their greed for
treasure excited, insisted upon the torture of the noble Guatemoc and
his comrade. The Cacique of Tlacuba, unable through weakness to
sustain the torture, which consisted of burning the soles of their feet
with boiling {217} oil, broke into lamenting