Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 1.djvu/59

Rh his left hand, in the previous fight, but he bound his buckler to the crippled limb, and, at the head of three hundred chosen men, accompanied by Alvarado, Sandoval, Ordaz and others of his most gallant cavaliers, he sallied from the besieged palace. It was soon found that horses were useless in charging the Indians over the smooth and slippery pavements of the town and square, and accordingly Cortéz sent them back to his quarters; yet he managed to repulse the squadrons in the court-yard of the Teocalli, and to hold them in check by a file of arquebusiers. The singular architecture of this Mound-Temple will be recollected by the reader, and the difficulty of its ascent, by means of five stairways and four terraces, was now increased by the crowds that thronged these narrow avenues. From stair to stair, from gallery to gallery, the Spaniards fought onward and upward with resistless courage, incessantly flinging their Indian foes, by main strength, over the narrow ledges. At length they reached the level platform of the top, which was capable of containing a thousand warriors. Here, at the shrine of the Aztec war-god, was a site for the noblest contest in the empire. The area was paved with broad and level stones. Free from all impediments, it was unguarded at its edges by battlements, parapets, or, any defences which could protect the assailants from falling if they approached the sides too closely. Quarter was out of the question. The battle was hand to hand, and body to body. Combatants grappled and wrestled in deadly efforts to cast each other from the steep and sheer ledges. Indian priests ran to and fro with streaming hair and sable garments, urging their superstitious children to the contest. Men tumbled headlong over the sides of the area, and even Cortéz himself, by superior agility, alone, was saved from the grasp of two warriors who dragged him to the brink of the lofty pyramid and were about to dash him to the earth.

For three hours the battle raged until every Indian combatant was either slain on the summit or hurled to the base. Forty-five of the Spaniards were killed, and nearly all wounded. A few Aztec priests, alone, of all the Indian band, survived to behold the destruction of the sanctuaries, which had so often been desecrated by the hideous rites and offerings of their bloody religion.

For a moment the natives were panic-struck by this masterly and victorious manœuvre, whilst the Spaniards passed unmolested to their quarters, from which, at night, they again sallied to burn three hundred houses of the citizens.

Cortéz thought that these successes would naturally dismay the Mexicans, and proposed, through Mariana,—his faithful