ghting, inspiring, seeking to restore the lost discipline to
his ranks. Conscious that all was lost unless the fatal ditch could be
crossed, and feeling that life must be considered before wealth, he
hurried forward everything, heavy guns, ammunition-wagons, baggage-vans,
and hurled them into the water along with the spoil of the Spaniards,
bales of costly goods, chests of solid ingots, everything that would serve
to fill the fatal gap. With these were mingled bodies of men and horses,
drowned in that deadly ditch, the whole forming a terrible pathway across
which the survivors stumbled and clambered until they reached the other
side.

Cortez, riding forward, found a spot in the ditch that was fordable, and
here, with the water up to his saddle-girths, he tried to bring order out
of confusion, and called his followers to this path to safety. But his
voice was lost in the turmoil, and with a few cavaliers who kept with him,
he pressed forward to the van, doubly saddened by seeing his favorite
page, Juan de Salazar, struck down in death by his side.

Here he found the valiant Gonzalo de Sandoval, who, with about twenty
other cavaliers, had led the van, composed of two hundred Spanish
foot-soldiers. They were halted before the third and final breach in the
causeway, a ditch as wide and deep as those which had been passed.
Fortunately it was not so closely beset by the enemy, who were still
engaged with the centre and rear, and the gallant cavaliers plunged
without hesitation into the water, followed by the foot, some swimming,
some clinging desperately to the manes and tails of the horses, some
carried to the bottom by the weight of the fatal gold with which they were
heavily laden. On leaving the fortress in which they had so long defended
themselves, much of the gold which they had gathered was necessarily
abandoned. Cortez told the soldiers to take what they wished of it, but
warned them not to overload themselves, saying, "He travels safest in the
dark night who travels lightest." Many of those who failed to regard this
wise counsel paid for their cupidity with their death.

Those who safely passed this final ditch were at the end of their
immediate peril. Soon they were off the causeway and on solid ground,
where the roar of the battle came more faintly to their ears. But word
came to them that the rear-guard was in imminent danger and would be
overwhelmed unless relieved. It seemed an act of desperation to return,