(^106) THE WEALTH AND POVERTY OF NATIONS
whether to think them gods or men. Mexican legend had it that the
great god Quetzlcoati, highest of the pantheon but long ago entrapped
by his all-too-human appetite for drink and driven into exile by a rival
deity, would one day return from the east and the sea. Was this the
promised return?
Moctezuma's spies reported that these strangers behaved more like
men than gods. For one thing, they enjoyed eating. This could be in
terpreted both ways, because they would not partake of blood or
human flesh, and that accorded with the legend of QuetzlcoatPs hu
mane disposition and his opposition to human sacrifice. For another,
they had a marked fondness for women, especially pretty women. Did
gods like or need sex? Hard to say. The question, of course, would have
posed no problem to a European. Had the Aztecs known their Greek
mythology, they would have recognized these carnal appetites as a sign
of divinity. Torn between the impulse to fight and acceptance of dis
missal, Moctezuma tried to bribe Cortés to go away while inviting
him to receive his kingdom.
For all this, the Spanish found themselves in perilous plight. They
were there to stay: Cortés had burned his vessels, which told his men
that they could not run. They had to fight or die. Or worse than die:
the Aztecs made sure the Spanish knew the fate of Mexican prisoners,
displaying bloody, flayed bodies on their walls. Another mistake in tac
tics. Nothing was better calculated to make the Spanish brave and res
olute.
Even so, despite reinforcements (originally sent to arrest Cortés)
and some success in hand-to-hand combat, the Spanish, so grievously
outnumbered, suffered disproportionately heavy losses. Moctezuma
may have vacillated, but other Aztecs, born and trained warriors, knew
men when they saw them and had no intention of yielding to a hand
ful of arrogant invaders. The Spanish were driven out of the capital city.
They made a nightmarish retreat, along the causeways, in the water
(the Aztecs had cut the bridges), enemies on all sides. Numbers of
Spanish were pulled to the bottom by the weight of their gold, which
they could not bear to abandon. Something between half and three
quarters of their small force died.
Noche trista, the Spanish called it, and yet it was a miraculous escape.
The Mexicans, moreover, could not pursue their advantage and finish
them off, in large part because they were tragically weakened by the
most subtle and secret of the Spanish weapons, one the invaders did
not even know they possessed. These were the Old World pathogens,
nora
(Nora)
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