hundred and fifty
Spaniards, of whom eighty were mounted, and six thousand Tlascalans.
They were divided into three divisions. The advance was under the
command of Juan Valesquez, Cortes led the main body, and the rear was
put in the charge {184} of the rash, cruel, but heroic Alvarado. The
less severely wounded were supported by their comrades, and those
unable to walk were carried on litters or mounted on horses. Montezuma
had died the night before. Any lingering hopes of being able to effect
peace through his influence had departed. Leaving everything they
could not carry, the Spaniards, after prayer, confession and
absolution, threw open the gates,[7] and entered the city.

Midnight was approaching. The streets and avenues were silent and
deserted. The retreat proceeded cautiously for a little way,
unmolested, when suddenly a deep, booming sound roared like thunder
over the heads of the Spaniards, through the black night, filling their
hearts with alarm. Cortes recognized it at once. The Aztecs were
awake and ready. The priests in the great teocallis, or temple
pyramids, were beating the great drum of the war-god, Huitzilopocahtli.
Lights appeared here and there in the town, the clashing of arms was
heard here and there on the broad avenues. Under the lights farther up
the streets could be seen files of troops moving. The hour was full of
portent.

Dragging their artillery, carrying their wounded, bearing their
treasure, the Spaniards and their allies passed rapidly through the
streets. Before the advance reached the first opening in the causeway
it was already hotly engaged. The water on either side of the
cause-way suddenly swarmed with canoes. Spears, javelins, arrows,
heavy war-clubs with jagged pieces of obsidian were hurled upon the
Spaniards on the causeway. In front of them, almost, it seemed, for
the whole length, the {185} Indians were massed. Step by step, by the
hardest kind of hand-to-hand fighting, the Spaniards and their allies
arrived at the first opening. Their loss had been frightful already.
They were surrounded and attacked from all sides. Indians scrambled up
the low banks in the darkness, seized the feet of the flying Spaniards
and strove to draw them into the water. Many a white man, many a
Tlascalan locked in the savage embrace of some heroic Aztec, stumbled
or was dragged into the lake and was drowned in the struggle. The
frightened horses reared and plunged and creat