Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 1.djvu/321

Rh of the provinces and cities whom I held as prisoners. When we reached the bridges which the Indians had removed we laid down the bridge which I carried with little trouble at the first crossing, for there was none to offer resistance save certain watchmen who shouted so loudly, that, before we came to the second, an infinite multitude of the enemy had risen against us, battling on every side both on water and land. I crossed rapidly with five horsemen and five hundred foot-soldiers, with whom I passed all the other broken bridges swimming until I reached the mainland. Leaving those people there, I returned to the others and found that they were fighting stoutly; but the injury our people received was beyond calculation, not only the Spaniards, but also the Tascaltecas who were with us, being nearly all killed. Though the Spaniards killed many natives, many of the Spaniards and horses were killed, likewise, and all the gold, and jewels, and many other things which we carried, and all the artillery, were lost.

When the survivors were collected, I pushed them on ahead, while I, with three or four horsemen and about twenty foot-soldiers who ventured to remain with me, took the rear-guard, fighting the Indians until we arrived at a city, called Tacuba, at the end of that causeway. God only knows how much trouble and danger I endured, because every time I faced about against our adversaries, I came back full of arrows, and darts, and stones, for as there was water on both sides, they could assail us with impunity and fearlessly. When we attacked those on land they would leap into the water, thus receiving very little hurt, except that some who in the skirmish interfered with each other and fell, were killed. With great trouble and fatigue, I conducted my remaining people to the city of Tacuba without being killed myself, nor having any Spaniard or Indian wounded, except one horseman who had gone with me to the rear. Those who