The cavalier stopped, and replied,—
“What wouldst thou, Señor?”
“Are the guards withdrawn?”
“All of them.”
“And the sentinels?”
“I have been to every post; not a man is left.”
Cortes spoke to his attendants and they, too, rode off; when they were gone he said to Leon,—
“Now we may go.”
And with that together they passed out into the street. Cortes turned, and looked toward the palace, now deserted; but the night seemed to have snatched the pile away, and in its place left a blackened void. Fugitive as he was, riding he knew not to what end, he settled in his saddle again with a sigh—not for the old house itself, nor for the comfort of its roof, nor for the refuge in time of danger; not for the Christian dead reposing in its gardens, their valor wasted and their graves abandoned, nor for that other victim there sacrificed in his cause, whose weaknesses might not be separated from a thousand services, and a royalty superbly Eastern: these were things to wake the emotions of youths and maidens, young in the world, and of poets, dreamy and simple-minded; he sighed for the power he had there enjoyed,—the weeks and months when his word was law for an empire of shadowy vastness, and he was master, in fact, of a king of kings,—immeasurable power now lost, apparently forever.