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Thursday, January 29, 2015

As the body count grew...

"Others did their best to scale the staggered plaster walls that loomed over them. I saw one young man reaching down desperately to lift a skinny woman up from the frenzied activity below. His goal must have been to reach the top of the wall and climb over to the mountain ridge that protected the city. It was a fool’s errand. He was never going to make it. Once they were up off the ground the Cholulans made simple targets for the arquebusiers. They were picked off one by one like I would flick ants off my leg at family picnics. The young man and his girlfriend were blown nearly in half by musket cartridges fired at close range. The arquebusiers cheered and roared as the body count grew."





-- from Conquest of Mexico: To Follow the Cross
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