But now we were face to face with a new trouble.  Large as was the summit of the pyramid, it would not give shelter to a half of our numbers, and if we desired to defend it some of the multitude herded round its base must seek refuge elsewhere.  Calling the leaders of the people together, I put the matter before them in few words, leaving them to decide what must be done.  They in turn consulted among themselves, and at length gave me this answer:  that it was agreed that all the wounded and aged there, together with most of the children, and with them any others who wished to go, should leave the teocalli that night, to find their way out of the city if they could, or if not, to trust to the mercy of the Spaniards.

I said that it was well, for death was on every side, and it mattered little which way men turned to meet it.  So they were sorted out, fifteen hundred or more of them, and at midnight the gates of the courtyard were thrown open, and they left.  Oh! it was dreadful to see the farewells that took place in that hour.  Here a daughter clung to the neck of her aged father, here husbands and wives bade each other a last farewell, here mothers kissed their little children, and on every side rose up the sounds of bitter agony, the agony of those who parted for ever.  I buried my face in my hands, wondering as I had often wondered before, how a God whose name is Mercy can bear to look upon sights that break the hearts of sinful men to witness.

Presently I raised my eyes and spoke to Otomie, who was at my side, asking her if she would not send our son away with the others, passing him off as the child of common people.

‘Nay, husband,’ she answered, ’it is better for him to die with us, than to live as a slave of the Spaniards.’

At length it was over and the gates had shut behind the last of them.  Soon we heard the distant challenge of the Spanish sentries as they perceived them, and the sounds of some shots followed by cries.

‘Doubtless the Tlascalans are massacring them,’ I said.  But it was not so.  When a few had been killed the leaders of the Spaniards found that they waged war upon an unarmed mob, made up for the most part of aged people, women and children, and their commander, Bernal Diaz, a merciful man if a rough one, ordered that the onslaught should cease.  Indeed he did more, for when all the able-bodied men, together with such children as were sufficiently strong to bear the fatigues of travel, had been sorted out to be sold as slaves, he suffered the rest of that melancholy company to depart whither they would.  And so they went, though what became of them I do not know.