The energy of Cortez was now roused. Quietly he drew up the Spanish and Zempoallan troops, armed to the teeth, in the heart of the city. He sent a secret order to the Tlascalans to approach, and, at a given signal, to fall upon the surprised and unarmed Cholulans, and cut them down without mercy. He then, upon a friendly pretext, sent for the magistrates of the city and all the principal nobles. They were immediately assembled, and the signal for massacre was given. The poor natives, taken entirely by surprise, rushed in dismay this way and that, encountering death at every corner. The Tlascalans, like hungry wolves, swept through the streets, glutting themselves with blood. It was with them the carnival of insatiable revenge. The dwellings were sacked piteously, and the city every where kindled into flame. Women and children were seized by the merciless Tlascalans to grace their triumph, and to bleed upon their altars of human sacrifice. For two days this horrid scene continued. At last, from exhaustion, the carnage ceased. The city was reduced to smouldering ruins, and pools of blood and mutilated carcases polluted the streets. The wail of the wretched survivors, homeless and friendless, rose to the ear of Heaven more dismal than the piercing shriek of anguish which is silenced by death. The argument with which Cortez defends this outrage is very laconic: "Had I not done this to them, they would have done the same to me." [Illustration: MASSACRE IN CHOLULA.] Such is war--congenial employment only for fiends. It is Satan's work, and can be efficiently prosecuted only by Satan's instruments. Six thousand Cholulans were slain in this awful massacre. The Spaniards were now sufficiently avenged. Cortez issued a proclamation offering pardon to all who had escaped the massacre, and inviting them to return to their smouldering homes. Slowly they returned, women and children, from the mountains where they had fled; some, who had feigned death, crept from beneath the bodies of the slain, and others emerged from hiding-places in their devastated dwellings. The cacique of the Cholulans had been killed in the general slaughter. Cortez appointed a brother of the late cacique to rule over the city, and, in apparently a sincere proclamation, informed the bereaved and miserable survivors that it was with the greatest sorrow that he had found himself compelled by their treachery to this terrible punishment. The Tlascalans, glutted with the blood of their ancient foes, were compelled to surrender all their prisoners, for Cortez would allow of no human sacrifices.