During the night of this day it thundered and lightened without intermission, and about midnight with terrific vehemence.
Subsequent to Quauhtemoctzin's capture we soldiers had become so very deaf that we could scarcely hear anything, and we felt a similar sensation to what a person experiences when standing in a belfry and all the bells are ringing at once, and then cease all of a sudden. The reader will certainly not think this an ill-timed comparison if he only considers how our ears were constantly assailed during the ninety-three days which the siege of Mexico lasted, both night and day, with all manner of noises. In one quarter rose the deafening yells, piping, and war-whoop of the enemy; here some were calling out to the canoes to attack the brigantines, the bridges, and the causeways; there the Mexicans drove their troops together with loud yells to cut through the dykes, deepen the openings, drive in palisades, throw up entrenchments, while others cried out for more lances and arrows; in another place the Mexicans shouted to the women to bring more stones for the slings; between all which was heard the dismal din of the hellish music of drums, shell trumpets, and particularly the horrible and mournful sound of the huge drum of Huitzilopochtli; and this infernal instrument, whose melancholy tone pierced to the very soul, never ceased a moment. Day and night did all this din and noise continue without intermission; no one could hear what another said; and so my comparison of the belfry is the most suitable I can imagine.
I will now add a few words about Quauhtemoctzin's outward appearance. This monarch was between twenty-three and twenty-four years of age, and could in all truth be termed a handsome man, both as regards his countenance and his figure. His face was rather of an elongated form, with a cheerful look; his eye had great expression, both when he assumed an air of majesty or when he looked pleasantly around him; the colour of his face inclined more to white than to the copper-brown tint of the Indians in general. His wife was a niece of his uncle Motecusuma; she was a young and very beautiful woman.