} barricades were gained, and the three main bodies of
the army moved forward into the heart of the city. The ever-prudent
Cortes did not follow his division, but remained with a small
body-guard of twenty Spaniards in a little island formed by the
intersection of certain water streets, whence he encouraged the allies,
who were occasionally beaten back by the Mexicans, and where he could
protect his own troops against any sudden descent of the enemy from
certain side streets.

"He now received a message from these Spanish troops who had made a
rapid and successful advance into the heart of the town, informing him
that they were not far from the market-place, and that they wished to
have his permission to push forward, as they already heard the noise of
the combats which the Alguazil mayor and Pedro de Alvarado were waging
from their respective stations. To this message Cortes returned for
answer that on no account should they move forward without first
filling up the apertures thoroughly. They sent an answer back, stating
that they had made completely passable all the ground they had gained;
and that he might come and see whether it were not so.

"Cortes, like a wise commander, not inclined to admit anything as a
fact upon the statement of others which could be verified by personal
inspection, took them at their word, and did move on to see what sort
of a pathway they had made; when, to his dismay, he came in sight of a
breach in the causeway, of considerable magnitude, being ten or twelve
paces in width, and which, far from being filled up with solid
material, had been passed upon wood and reeds, which was entirely
insecure in case of retreat. The Spaniards, 'intoxicated with
victory,' as their Commander {208} describes them, had rushed on,
imagining that they left behind them a sufficient pathway.

"There was now no time to remedy this lamentable error, for when Cortes
arrived near this 'bridge of affliction,' as he calls it, he saw many
of the Spaniards and the allies retreating toward it, and when he came
up close to it, he found the bridge-way broken down, and the whole
aperture so full of Spaniards and Indians, that there was not room for
a straw to float upon the surface of the water. The peril was so
imminent that Cortes not only thought that the conquest of Mexico was
gone, but that the term of his life as well as that of his victories
had come; and he resolved to die there fighting. All that he could d