Page:The Mastering of Mexico.djvu/292

254 there. Here one reached the water-edge and implored us to lift him out, while further off another clambered over dead bodies only to meet dense crowds of the foe. Could any one believe a man of us observed the order of retreat? He were a fool.

Cortes with some of the officers and soldiers had passed, as I said, and had spurred along the causeway to reach the main land. If we had waited, horseman and soldiers, one for another, what would it have availed? Groups of thirty or forty would have been cut to pieces; not one of us would have been left alive, for on one side the causeway was the lake swarming with canoes to carry us off prisoners, and on the other hosts of warriors on the flat house-roofs pelting us with lances and stones and cutting us with our own swords—which the enemy had taken and fixed to their lances. Our muskets and crossbows were useless because of the rain, and the darkness made every movement uncertain. We should have fared even worse had it been day. By the grace of God only did we escape.

So we drove ahead to get to the town of Tacuba, where our vanguard had arrived. Finally we heard voices saying to Cortes, "Captain, we are safe here, but they say we are fleeing and leaving men behind to die. Let us go back and bring them help." Cortes answered that it was a miracle that one of us escaped, and he promptly turned back with some