Page:Romance of History, Mexico.djvu/229

 warning note seemed to echo. Then boomed forth the blood-curdling drum of Huitzilopotchli, crying for vengeance on the impious strangers. The Aztecs were awake!

Hastily the bridge was laid down, but even as the vanguard marched across they heard the sound as of the gathering of a mighty multitude, and the report of a gun in the city behind told them that their comrades had been already attacked. Louder and nearer grew the distant sounds, and just as Cortés, with his company and the baggage, reached the bridge, out of the dark water, on either side, sprang up a fleet of canoes filled with white-clothed warriors. So furious was the storm of missiles that the infantry, panic-stricken, pressed wildly on the cavaliers, who were thus driven across the bridge. Cortés attempted in vain to make a stand. The horsemen, riding down their assailants, swept by, and after them struggled the infantry with the baggage. Every moment added to the multitude of canoes and increased the carnage. All sense of discipline was lost, and each man fought and prayed for himself, straining forward over friend and foe. For a time Cortes stayed his horse by the bridge, but at last he too was swept onward. Those who could, struggled madly after the general's flying horse, but the sick and the wounded, the women and the prisoners, were all slain. There fell Cacama, the heroic young king of Tezcuco, and the two princesses, the fair daughters of Montezuma. Marina, rescued and borne to the vanguard by some Tlascalans, was fortunately saved.

Meanwhile the rearguard, under Alvarado and 195