Page:Vol 1 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/364

244 of their butchered friends. Terrified by the fiery thunder and its mysterious missiles, they fell back; and now the cavalry charged, trampling them underfoot, and opening a way for the infantry and.allies, who pressed onward to take advantage of the confusion and to repeat the scene enacted within. Panicstricken as the natives were by the strange arms and tactics of the Spaniards, they offered little or no resistance, though armed with intent to attack. Being also without leaders, they had none to restrain their flight, but pressed one on the other, down the streets and into buildings, anywhere out of the reach of the cutting blades and fierce-tramping horses. The Tlascaltecs were at the same time falling on their flanks, glorying in the opportunity to repay their enenies the treachery of years ago. A bloody track they left. Unprepared for such an onslaught the people of Cholula found little opportunity to make use of the barricades and the stone piles, and where they attempted it the fire-arm and cross-bow aided the fire-brand. The strongest resistance was met at the temples, wherein the fugitives mostly gathered, but even these did not hold out long, for stones and arrows availed little against armor.

All who could sought to gain the great temple of Quetzalcoatl, which offered not only the best defence from its height, but was held to be impregnable through the special protection extended over it by the deity. Within its walls lay confined a mighty stream, so it was said, which by the removal of a few stones could be let loose to overwhelm invaders. Now, if ever, in the name of all the gods, let it be done! Reverently were removed, one by one, the stones of the sacred wall, but no flood appeared, not even a drop of water. In their despair the besieged hastened to hurl the stones, and arrows, and darts