CHAPTER XIX.
THE HEEL OF THE OPPRESSOR.
A GREAT storm broke over the ruined city the night after the surrender of Guatemozin. The rain came down in torrents, as though the pitying heavens would wash out the awful blood-stains with which men had polluted the earth. The streets were deserted by friend and by foe. Only the dead were there, lying in silent heaps over which brooded the pestilence.[1] More than fifty-five thousand persons are said to have perished within the city by sword and by famine in that siege of seventy-five days.
Taking with them the captured chief Guatemozin and all the treasure which could be found after a most diligent search, the Spaniards withdrew to Cuyoacan, a city on the mainland, not far south of Mexico.
Cortez had not secured peace for himself by the destruction of Mexico. Envious tongues were busy against him on both sides of the Atlantic, and he was in constant danger of arrest and recall. More than once directions were sent to Mexico to hang him without the ceremony of a trial. Admiral Columbus, a son of the great discoverer, was one of those who came from Cuba to put an end to what were deemed his treasonable designs. In
- ↑ The remnant of the population, at the request of the conquered Guatemozin, went to the neighboring villages until the town could be purified and the dead removed (Bernal Diaz).
