Then, in an instant, before the cloth had ceased to flutter, a smoke arose from every side, and with it came the sound of the firing of matchlocks.

Everywhere among the dancers men fell dead or wounded, but the mass of them, unharmed as yet, huddled themselves together like frightened sheep, and stood silent and terror-stricken.

Then the Spaniards, shouting the name of their patron saint, as it is their custom to do when they have some such wickedness in hand, drew their swords, and rushing on the unarmed Aztec nobles began to kill them.

Now some shrieked and fled, and some stood still till they were cut down, but whether they stayed or ran the end was the same, for the gates were guarded and the wall was too high to climb.
There they were slaughtered every man of them, and may God, who sees all, reward their murderers! It was soon over; within ten minutes of the waving of the cloth, those six hundred men were stretched upon the pavement dead or dying, and with shouts of victory the Spaniards were despoiling their corpses of the rich ornaments they had worn.
Then I turned to Guatemoc and said, 'It seems that you did well not to join in yonder revel.' But Guatemoc made no answer.

He stared at the dead and those who had murdered them, and said nothing.