as his own pleasure to go and reside with
his friends. He was now so thoroughly convinced of the resistless
power of the Spaniards, and that he was swept along by the decrees of
fate, that he dreaded any movement of resistance on the part of his
people.[E]

[Footnote E: Bernal Diaz says, "It having been decided that we should
seize the person of the king, we passed the whole of the preceding
night in praying to our Lord that he would be pleased to guide us, so
that what we were going to do should redound to his holy service."]

He was magnificently imprisoned. His own servants were permitted to
attend him, and he continued to administer the government as if he
had been in his own palace. All the forms of courtly etiquette were
scrupulously observed in approaching his person. Ostensibly to confer
upon him greater honor, a body-guard of stern Spanish veterans was
appointed for his protection. This body-guard, with all external
demonstrations of obsequiousness, watched him by night and by day,
rendering escape impossible.

This violence, however, was but the beginning of the humiliation and
anguish imposed upon the unhappy monarch. The governor, Qualpopoca,
who had ventured to resist the Spaniards, was brought a captive to the
capital, with his son and fifteen of the principal officers who had
served under him. They were immediately surrendered to Cortez, that he
might determine their crime and their punishment. Qualpopoca was put
to the torture. He avowed, in his intolerable agony, that he had only
obeyed the orders of his sovereign. Cortez, who wished to impress the
Mexicans with the idea that it was the greatest of all conceivable
crimes to cause the death of a Spaniard, determined to inflict upon
them a punishment which should appal every beholder. They were all
doomed to be burned alive in the great market-place of the city.
To allow no time for any resistance to be organized, they were
immediately led out for execution. In the royal arsenals there was an
immense amount of arrows, spears, javelins, and other wooden martial
weapons, which had been collected for the defense of the city. These
the soldiers gathered, thus disarming the population, and heaped them
up in an immense funeral pile.

While these atrocities were in preparation, Cortez entered the
presence of his captive, Montezuma, and sternly accused him of being
an accomplice in the death of the Spaniards. He then pitilessly
ordered the soldiers who accom