154 SOLDIERS AND SAILORS the bodies of their comrades. At length they won through, but out of tin r small force there had perished, or been taken captive as victims for sacrifice, some four hundred and fifty Spaniards and four thousand native allies. It is said that when the shattered army reached a place of safety outside the city, Cortes sat down beneath an ancient cedar-tree which is still shown to travellers, and wept. Yet within a week fortune smiled on him again, for he and the few comrades who remained to him fought and won the battle of Otompan against thousands of the Indians, Cortes killing their chief Cihuaca with his own hand. The Aztecs rejoiced at the departure of the Spaniards from their capital Mex- ico or Tenoctitlan, but their joy was premature. First the small-pox, introduced into the country by the white men, fell upon the city and swept away thou- sands, among them Cuitlahua, the emperor who succeeded to Montezuma, and then came the news that the indomitable Cortes was marching upon them with a great army of native allies and large reinforcements of Spaniards from overseas Guatimozin, the new emperor, made every possible preparation for de fence and the siege began, a siege as cruel as that of Jerusalem and perhaps more bloody. First Cortes laid waste the cities about Mexico, then he attacked the Queen of the Valley herself attacked it again and again till at length it was a ruin and tens of thousands of its inhabitants were dead by starvation, by pestilence, and by the sword. On either side the combat was one of desperate courage, but notwithstanding occasional successes on the part of the Aztecs, such as that when they captured and sacrificed some sixty Spaniards, from the first the genius of Cortes made the end inevitable. When nothing remained of Tenoctitlan and its people save some blackened walls and a few thousand wretches reduced to skele- tons by hunger, the capture of Guatimozin while attempting to escape in a canoe, made an end of the fighting in August, 1521. Cortes promised honorable treat- ment to the fallen king, but before long he put him and some of his companions to the torture in order to force the discovery of hidden treasure. This brutality proved ineffectual, but taken together with the subsequent hanging of Guatimo- zin upon an unproved charge of conspiracy against the Spaniards, it constitutes the blackest blot upon the fame of Cortes. It is fair to add, however, that he was not by nature a harsh man, and that he was driven to the commission of these cruelties by the clamor of his soldiers who were infuriated at finding so lit- tle treasure in the devastated city. With the capture of Mexico the fortunes of Cortes culminated. He was appointed Captain-General of the land of New Spain in October, 1522, and the next few years he occupied in rebuilding the city, and in bringing the surrounding territories under rhe rule of Spain. Weary- ing of these comparatively peaceful occupations, in 1524 he undertook an expedi- tion of discovery and conquest to Honduras, upon which he was absent until May, 1526, when he returned after enduring much hardship and suffering, to find that enemies had been plotting against him in Mexico. This discovery and the de- sire of clearing himself with the emperor, caused him to determine to visit Spain where he arrived in May, 1528. Charles the Fifth received him with much favor creating him Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca and military commander of New
