The Infidel; or, the Fall of Mexico. Vol. I.

The traveller, who wanders at the present day along the northern and eastern borders of the Lake of Tezcuco, searches in vain for those monuments of aboriginal grandeur, which s...

At these words, the worthy thus appealed to, woke from his revery, and staring a moment in some little perplexity at his companions, took up a long copper-headed spear, which re...

As the Castilians followed the eyes of Najara, they beheld, approaching them from behind, three men, in whom, but for the direction given to their thoughts by the exclamation, t...

For a few moments, the two walked together in silence, and at a slow pace, until the others were beyond earshot; when Villafana, suddenly stopping and casting his eyes upon Juan...

The walls of Mexico were the foaming surges of her lake. The cities on the shore, when much exposed by defencelessness of site, great wealth of inhabitants, or other causes, to...

The apartment into which Juan now found himself introduced, was very spacious; and, indeed, had the height of the ceiling corresponded in proportion with the length and breadth,...

"Senor Juan Lerma," said Cortes, when the last of the assemblage had reluctantly departed:--He had descended from the platform, and spoke with a voice, which, if not decidedly f...

According to the apologue, every man carries on his back a satchel, in which are deposited his infirmities and vices, and which, though thus concealed from his own eyes, lies ve...

Some two hours or more after he had been discharged from the presence of the Captain-General, Juan Lerma sat musing in one of the many hundred chambers which composed the vast e...

The royal garden of Tezcuco was an extensive piece of ground, fenced, on three sides, by the palace and its dependencies, and bounded on the fourth, by the waters of the lake, f...

No sooner had the Alguazil departed from the enclosure, than the figure which Juan had beheld obscurely among the shadows, stepped slowly into the moonshine, looking like a phan...

As the bushes parted, a tall figure sprang into the path, and running round the pool, would instantly have been at the side of the two Castilians, who were yet unobserved, had i...

It has been already mentioned, that the person of Guatimozin was familiar to few, or none, of the Spaniards. Intensely and consistently hostile to the invaders, from the first m...

When Ovid describes the memorable encounter between Perseus and the great sea-monster of Ethiopia, he is at the pains to narrate with what fury the creature _snapped at the shad...

Then followed another period of silence and dejection, in which the prisoner wasted away as much in body as in spirit, becoming so listlessly indifferent to everything, that he...

It was now midnight. Audience after audience, and council after council, in the great hall of the palace, had shown how rapidly were approaching to a climax the involved events...

The day after the Feast of the Holy Ghost, or Whitsunday, early in May, 1521, opened upon the valley of Mexico with clouds and vapours, which, sweeping over the broad lake, coll...

Some two hours after nightfall, as the unhappy Lerma lay in darkness and solitude, (for Befo was no longer permitted to be his companion,) the door of the prison opened, and the...

Juan stood, for a moment, confounded in the presence of his preserver; and Magdalena, gradually exchanging her fierce expression for one more becoming her sex, appeared at last,...

It was a tempestuous night. The clouds, which had all day enveloped the pagan metropolis, were, at last, gathered over Tezcuco. The wind blew in gusts, with frequent rain; and a...

The scene of death in which they were engaged, had so employed the thoughts of the cavaliers, that they were, for a time, insensible to many tumultuous noises in the city, which...