Page:The Mastering of Mexico.djvu/281

 Rh than when he left, and all the rest badly wounded.

The damage the Mexicans now did, however, was nothing to what we afterwards suffered. Their audacity went so far that they entered our quarters and set them on fire, one body attacking us in front and another in the rear, and we should have been suffocated with smoke if we had not put out the fire by throwing earth over it. They hurled at random lances, stones and arrows so that the ground in all our courts was literally covered. Combat under these conditions lasted all day and until late at night, when at last we could dress our wounds, mend breaches in the wall and get ready for the next day.

At the beginning of dawn our captain decided to sally out with all of us and the troops of Narvaez, and beat the enemy, or at least make them feel our strength. The Mexicans had determined on the same action. They came in overwhelming numbers, fresh men every minute to the attack. Neither cannon nor musketry were to the purpose, nor killing from forty to fifty of their troop at a time. They fought on in close ranks, their courage seeming to increase with every loss. At times they would retreat, but that was merely a ruse to draw us from our quarters to where they could surround us, desperately assault us with stones and lances cast from housetops, and assail our ears with drums, trumpets and