Page:The Mastering of Mexico.djvu/342

302 our sloops in pursuit, and then run them foul of stakes they had driven in the water.

But always, and in best possible order, in our daily conflict, we were by degrees taking temples, houses, bridges, razing everything before us, and filling in the openings in the causeways with materials of the buildings we had pulled down. At last the city stood open to our view. When the towns lying in that part of the lake which was of sweet water saw how the victories we gained were counting, and that the peoples of Chalco, Texcoco and Tlaxcala had united with us more closely—these towns apparently leagued for defence, for they all sent an embassy to Cortes to sue for peace, telling how they had opposed us because Guatemoc had ordered them and they had to obey. Their coming of their own will rejoiced Cortes uncommonly. With the flattering words he knew how to use he pardoned them, although he added that they deserved severest punishment for having aided the Mexicans.

Seeing at length the futility of our present means, and the impossibility of our filling in all the gaps in the causeway that we took day by day, and the Mexicans endeavored to reopen night by night, and that this fighting and filling in and keeping watch was ail of it very hard work, Cortes determined to get the opinion of officers and soldiers in the camp where he was, that is in Olid's. And also he wrote to us in