Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 2.djvu/72

 from their hands. I mounted one of the towers of their idols to see how they would approach and where they would attack us, that I might give all necessary orders. After I had completed our preparations, there appeared on the water a large fleet of canoes which I believe exceeded two thousand; and in them there came more than twelve thousand warriors, in addition to whom there arrived such a multitude of people by land that they covered the whole country. Their captains came at their head, carrying our captured swords in their hands, and naming their provinces, crying, "Mexico! Mexico! Temixtitan! Temixtitan!" and shouting insults at us, and threatening to kill us with the swords they had taken from us before in the city of Temixtitan. After I had settled where each captain was to be placed, and as on the mainland there was a great multitude of the enemy, I advanced to attack them with twenty horsemen, and five hundred men of Tascaltecal divided into three companies. I ordered them, as soon as they had scattered the enemy, to collect at the foot of a hill about a half a league from there, where many of the foe had also assembled. When we separated, each division pursued the enemy on its respective side, and, after having routed them and killed many with our swords, we retired to the foot of the hill; there I ordered certain foot soldiers, my servants, who had served me and were very agile, to try to mount the steepest part of the hill. I with the horsemen would then circle round behind, where it was more level, and we would take them in the middle. Thus it happened that, when the enemy saw the Spaniards climbing the hill, they turned, believing they could retreat at their ease, but instead they encountered us, who were about fifteen horsemen; and we fell upon them, as did likewise the warriors of Tascaltecal, so that in a very short time more than five hundred of them perished, and all the others escaped and fled towards the mountains.