Page:The Mastering of Mexico.djvu/339

Rh gave chase, some of the Mexicans would throw themselves into the water, and others, standing behind breastworks, would receive them with lances made very long by swords they had taken In the night of our great defeat. With these lances, and arrows from canoes, they would wound the horses so that the owners became unwilling to risk their valuable flesh in fruitless conflict—for a horse at that time cost from eight hundred to a thousand dollars.

Under such conditions we went on fighting from morning till night. Then, when darkness came on, we would return to camp and treat our hurts with bandages steeped in oil. If our wounded had remained in camp, none of the companies would have gone out with more than twenty men at a time. Our officers and standard bearers were most exposed and oftenest wounded, and to hold aloft our tattered colors we had need every day of a fresh bearer. The divisions under Cortes, who was with Olid, and Sandoval, fared no better than ours, and the Mexicans kept attacking us every blessed day. Well, says the reader, with all these hardships they at least had enough to eat. Yes, plenty of maize cakes, but not food refreshing for the Invalided. The confounded vegetables and herbs that the Indians eat kept body and soul together, with the help of cherries, while they lasted, and prickly pears.

When we began to see that in our daily advance