Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/171

Rh with the guns and the horses. This was their first experience with a Mexican ambuscade. They soon found themselves in a deep and narrow valley, surrounded by a surging mass of warriors, many of them clad in little more than paint and feathers, and all yelling as only savages can yell.

Cortez, with forty archers, thirteen horsemen and six cannon, pressed through this raging sea of enemies till he reached an open plain, where he made a stand and fought all day. Much injury was done to the savages, but the Spaniards did not lose a man. This would seem incredible but for the fact that in all their warfare these people risked everything in order to secure prisoners for sacrifice and to carry off their own slain and wounded from the battlefield. A dozen men would thus throw away their own lives in order to gain a single captive, and by the time those who thus fell were rescued it is easy to see that many more lives were forfeited.

In one of these Tlascalan battles two of the horses were killed. This fact was carefully concealed from the enemy, who, until they saw one of these creatures dead, supposed they were immortal like the gods. After their discovery of the truth one of these animals was cut up, and the pieces were sent to all the Tlascalans as an inspiriting summons to come out and conquer their common foe.

The next day, having received reinforcements from his camp, Cortez sallied forth at daybreak to make an attack on the neighboring villages, five or six of which he burned, took four hundred prisoners, men and women, and fought his way back to his camp without loss.

An after-breakfast battle that same day was still more remarkable as described in Spanish history. An immense