Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 2.djvu/81

 signing him thirty horsemen, eighteen archers and musketeers, and one hundred and fifty foot soldiers with swords and shields, and more than twenty-five thousand warriors of Tascaltecal; these were to make their headquarters in Tacuba. I made Cristobal de Olid, captain of another division, to whom I assigned thirty horsemen, eighteen archers and musketeers, and a hundred and sixty foot-soldiers with swords and shields, and more than twenty thousand warriors of our allies; these were to make their headquarters in Cuyoacan. Of the third division, I made Gonzalo de Sandoval, alguacil mayor, captain, assigning him twenty-four horsemen, four musketeers, fifteen archers, and a hundred and fifty foot soldiers with swords and shields, fifty of whom were chosen among those I had brought in my company, and under the command of Cortes; Jorge served afterwards in Guatemala, and died in Madrid in 1540; Gomez died in Peru, and Juan a bastard brother died at sea while going to Cuba to bring horses. Pedro was one of the most daring and cruel of the Spanish captains; two exploits gained him a conspicuous place in the annals of the conquest, the first being the massacre of the nobles during the religious dance in the great temple, which provoked such terrible consequences, and the second his renowned leap which still holds its place amongst the heroic feats of history under the name of El Salto de Alvarado, a street in Mexico near the spot of the alleged jump perpetuating the legend.

Bernal Diaz denies the fact, and bluntly explains that the story took its origin from a libellous refrain or pasquinade composed by a soldier who had a sharp faculty for such rhyming. This represented Alvarado as deserting his two hundred and fifty men during the retreat of the Noche Triste, saving himself by jumping his horse over a canal, and it passed, according to Diaz, into the common stock of camp stories and jokes. This desertion was one of the accusations presented in his trial (record published by D. Jose" Ramirez, Mex. 1847) to which Alvarado answered that he had held his men together as long as he could, but that it was they who deserted him, leaving him wounded, with his horse killed, and that he escaped only by a soldier taking him up behind him on his horse in the fight; nothing is said about any "leap." Cortes likewise never mentions it. The legend will never die, for it is of those which please popular fancy and become enshrined in the historical folk-lore, which is imperishable.

After the conquest, he was made governor of Cuauhtemallan and Chiapa, but his restless spirit spurred him to other adventures, and