THE CROSS AND THE SWORD OF CORTES

I told myself that I was a crusader, bringing light to the heathen Indians, saving their souls from a damnation without end, teaching the truths of Christianity and the Blessed Mother Mary""; so speaks Aguilar, Cortes' interpreter, at the beginning and throughout this fictionalized account of the Conquest; oddly-met in 1968, it is unequivocally an apologia. By and large the details match what is generally known, but the interpretation exalts Cortes not only for his courage and skill but also for his motives: his only mistake was to insist on conversion. The Aztecs, on the other hand, are depicted as effeminate and savage, their priests referred to as ""filthy"" ad nauscam. In form and content this is very similar to Adolf Haller's He Served Two Masters, ostensibly told by Cortes' page, which is sympathetic to both sides, and far more readable.