Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/218

210 With a hundred and sixty-six men in all, and that faith in himself which he seems never to have lost, Cortez now pushed on to Tlascala, and from thence down over the shelving mountains to the lowlands where the enemy lay entrenched. There, in a raging storm whose noise drowned every other sound, he surprised Narvaez at Cempoalla, wounded and captured him, and then set himself to the task of winning the hearts of those who had crossed the sea to fight him, and succeeded in turning an army of foes into friends.

After dismantling the vessels in which they came and stowing their sails and rigging at Villa Rica, Cortez was proceeding to secure this conquest on the coast, when startling news came from Mexico. The Aztecs had rebelled. The garrison were in a state of siege; their quarters had been undermined and several of his men had been killed. The soldiers of Narvaez expected, when they came, to go to Mexico to reinstate Montezuma; they were now willing to go with Cortez to help put him down.

The troops which had been sent away on expeditions in the neighborhood were recalled in hot haste, and, leaving his sick and wounded at Cempoalla, Cortez set out. The path chosen was not the one he had traveled before. The same mountains were to be crossed, but he entered the valley near the city of Tezcuco. The country seemed to be deserted by its inhabitants. The dark forests of cypress and pine through which the road sometimes lay could not be more lonely than were some of the hamlets he passed. As the troops descended the mountain they were met by messengers from the beleaguered garrison. Alvarado implored them to hasten to his rescue. Montezuma wrote to say that he had kept his promise