Page:Vol 1 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/798

678 was Alvarado that he was obliged to call down Badajoz and to concentrate his forces, abandoning the several temples which surrounded the large pyramid. Encouraged by this success the Mexicans pushed their advantage from all sides, and unable to hold their position the Spaniards retired with considerable loss, including three horses.

Nothing daunted, Alvarado repeated his entry on the following day, and met with comparatively little opposition, the enemy being evidently discouraged by the fall of the temple and the resolute bearing of the Spaniards. He now passed through and came up to Cortés' party, by whom he was received with ringing and repeated cheers. The latter had just captured the last canal and intrenchments near the marketplace, after a sharp struggle, and now the general and his doughty lieutenant entered the market and ascended the lofty pyramid, on which the royal banner waved a proud welcome, while beside it the still impaled heads of white and dusky victims recalled the bitter vengeance yet to be exacted. Surveying the city beneath him on all sides, Cortés says: "It seemed undoubted that of eight parts we had gained seven." The late magnificent metropolis, the finest and largest on all the northern continent, displayed now a mass of ruins, through which the broad paths levelled by the invaders led to the one corner which alone remained to the besieged, wherein, amid famine, pest, and putrefying bodies, they huddled in packed masses, sending forth from their midst the groans of dying and loud lamentations, in an atmosphere so pestiferous that the soldiers who entered the lately abandoned lanes were almost stifled. People were found