steel through the bodies of the nobles. Few of the Indians possess any weapons with which to defend themselves from the sharp Toledo blades. Taken thus by surprise, panic-stricken, they tread one upon another, and then fall helpless under the merciless thrusts of the enemy. Their first impulse has been to rush for the gates, but lines of bristling pikes oblige them to press back against the crowd, thereby increasing the confusion. Some attempt to climb over the high walls, some to hide in the temple buildings, even burrowing beneath the heaps of the slain. Before an hour has passed there is nothing left in sight deemed worthy of Spanish swords, so suddenly has this brilliant assembly been transformed into loathsome masses of mangled bodies. The pathway of the conquerors is everywhere slippery with the blood of their victims.
In this horrible butchery, as we have seen, the lower classes suffered less than the nobles. Desolation was brought home to nearly every prominent family in the city. Their grief, shared by dependants and adherents throughout the provinces, was commemorated in plaintive ballads, by which the people kept