Page:The Mastering of Mexico.djvu/284

246 although that was never wanting in him. At last it pleased providence to help us to the place where we had set the image of Our Lady. It was not there. Montezuma through devotion, or fear, as we came to know, had put it in safety. But some of us set fire to the Mexican idols and their chapel, while others were fighting, for here stood together the papas and many of the caciques.

We had undergone greatest peril. Our towers were broken in pieces. All of us were covered with wounds, and forty-six of our men slain. We started to return. Our retreat was no less difficult. Oh! how they fell upon us and rushed us down the steps of the temple! And we came back to quarters just in time, for the enemy had made breaches in our walls and forced their way to our rooms. Such work we were able to stop, but never their hurling of lances, stones and arrows with most frightful yells.

When we had mended our walls, aided our wounded and buried our dead, every plan offered in our council of war had no sufficient remedy. Our troubles increased through the ill disposition of the soldiers of Narvaez who, seeming crazy and deaf to every thing said to them, cursed Cortes and even Diego Velasquez for sending them from the peace and security of their farms in Cuba to the horrors of death in this country. Finally we agreed to sue