Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 2.djvu/102

 that day, and my seven brigantines had entered that day into the city by the water streets and burned a greater part of it. The captains of the other camps and the six brigantines fought very well that day, and about what happened to them I might dilate a great deal, but to avoid prolixity, omit doing so, and limit myself to saying that after the victory they retired to their camp without suffering any loss.

Early in the morning of the following day, after having heard mass, I returned to the city with all the people in the same order,  Third General Assault on the city so as not to give the enemy time to excavate the bridges and rebuild the barricades; but notwithstanding that we were very early, two of the three water streets, which crossed the street leading from this camp to the large houses of the square, had been reestablished as during the preceding days and were very difficult to capture; so much so that the combat lasted from eight o'clock in the morning till one o'clock in the afternoon, during which we used up almost all the arrows, ammunition, and musket balls, which the archers and musketeers had with them. Your Majesty may well believe that our danger each time we captured these bridges was unequalled, because to take them, the Spaniards were obliged to swim across to the other side, which many could not do, because the enemy awaited them with knife and lance thrusts to prevent their landing. But as they no longer had roofs on the other side from whence to injure us, and we used our crossbows from this side on them (for we were the throw of a horseshoe from each other), the Spaniards daily gathered new courage and were determined to cross, for they saw my determination, and sink or swim, the thing must be done. It may seem to Your Majesty, that after having gone through such danger to gain these bridges and barricades, that we were negligent in not holding them after having won them, so