Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/228

220 the virtues of their savage foe, who at all hazards bore away their dead and wounded from the field. Those who had safely passed each breach rushed back to save their struggling comrades in the rear, and there was a rally which covered the retreat of the shattered remnant of the Spanish soldiery. But fresh Aztec forces came down like a torrent, and the Christians gave way and swam back among the canoes. Alvarado was unhorsed and left behind surrounded by Aztecs thirsty for the blood of the man who had caused this terrible slaughter. Putting his long lance firmly into the wreck, he vaulted over the breach at a single leap.

Cortez sat down and through the darkness watched the shattered army go by. Most of the horses were gone; all of the cannon had been left at the second bridge. Not a musket remained, nor a man who was not wounded. Most of his Tlascalan allies had perished, while scores of his brave cavaliers had for ever disappeared beneath the briny waters of Tezcuco or had been dragged away to slaughter. But Marina was safe, and Aguilar, Montezuma's daughters and Martin Lopez, the old shipbuilder, with Alvarado and others of his trusted friends, who gathered around their general. It was now his turn to weep, and the tears of Cortez were long remembered by those who know the anguish of his soul that sad night of the Spanish retreat. At Tacubaya, on one of the avenues leading out of the City of Mexico, a gnarled old cypress tree enclosed with a railing stands almost in the roadway, and marks the spot where Cortez stopped to rally his shattered army on the "sad night."