was the great _teocalli_ of the war-god, which overlooked the
Spaniards' quarters, and so fierce was the hail of arrows and stones
from this that a sortie was made. Cortes, with Sandoval and Alvarado,
and a number of the Spaniards, led a gallant attack on the pyramid,
fought their way up its precipitous steps and terraces, and after a
frightful hand-to-hand struggle on its giddy summit, forced the Aztecs
and their priests over the edge, and rolled the infernal idol of
Huitzilopotchli, the war-god, down among the people in the streets
below.

Impressed as they were by the destruction of their temple and god--an
event which was rapidly circulated about the country by hieroglyphical
paintings--the Aztecs abated nothing of their attack and siege of the
hated white men. All superstitious fear had gone, and the true
character of these people the Spaniards had now to learn. Day after day
the barbarians came on. Sortie after sortie, sometimes with success,
sometimes with severe loss, was made by the Christians, Cortes more
than once barely escaping with his life, while numerous Spaniards and
horses fell. The labyrinth of streets and cross-canals and bridges much
hampered the Spaniards' movements, and houses and walls were torn down
to fill these fatal ditches. Distress and famine fell upon the
garrison, mutiny arose, and some of the Spaniards cursed themselves and
their leader as fools for having left their comfortable homes in Cuba
to embark on this mad enterprise, whose termination seemed as if it
might be--as indeed it was for many of them--the sacrificial stone of
the heathen god.

But Cortes, intrepid and serene in the face of disaster, called them to
order. The unfortunate Montezuma, who, buried in a profound melancholy,
took no part in the struggle, was urged to address his frenzied people
from the tower of the fortification. He consented, and the Aztec
warriors without the walls gazed with astonishment on their captured
chief, and heard with still greater amazement his commands that strife
against the white man should cease. But the power of his name and
presence was gone; howls and execration arose from the mob; a stone
from a sling struck Montezuma upon the forehead, and he sank back into
the arms of the Spaniards and was borne to his quarters. For a space,
the mob, horror-struck at its sacrilegious act, fled from the place,
and not a man was seen within the square that day. Montezuma, sorely
stricken, declined rap