Bernal will tell how they were housed in a fantastic palace built of fine stone and plaster, with walls and columns of aromatic wood, and that adjoining the palace, a splendid garden spread beside the water. The old soldier will say he especially admired the large square pond stocked with birds, and remark that this was a pool into which canoas could pass directly through a water gate from the lake, without having to land. Bernal will also claim he could never get tired walking among those sweet flowers and fragrant trees.
The old soldier will not specifically say he stood guard that night in the gardens, but we know Cortes always demanded they keep watch -- even that those not on watch must still sleep in their armor!
Perhaps when Bernal writes he could never get tired walking in that garden, he meant it literally. He was, after all, a sergeant, and stood, and supervised, his men at guard.
Something else he does not say, but which we can discover by consulting an ephermeris, is that the Moon was full on that night of November 7, 1519 (Julian calendar date). In the dry season of central Mexico, it might have shone across the waters of the lake and gleamed through the garden trees, then bent down onto the surface of the palace pond, and shimmered up into the Spanish eyes, a pale silver reflection of the golden sun they would discover tomorrow.