ury they overwhelmed him with a shower of darts
and stones, inflicting injuries from which in course of a few days he
died. Surrounded as he was on every side by thousands of fierce
enemies determined to stretch every Spaniard upon the stone of
sacrifice, Cortes saw the impossibility of maintaining the unequal
fight and determined on retreat. Accordingly on the night of July 1,
1520, the Spaniards and their native allies sallied from the fortress,
and laden with gold from Montezuma's treasury, took the route of
Tlacopan. Soon their escape was detected and instantly a fierce attack
was made upon them from every quarter. The bridge that they had
brought with them to span the gaps in the causeway became fixed in the
mud, so that their only path across the canals lay over the bodies of
their comrades. At length they won through, but out of their small
force there had perished, or been taken captive as victims for
sacrifice, some four hundred and fifty Spaniards and four thousand
native allies. It is said that when the shattered army reached a place
of safety outside the city, Cortes sat down beneath an ancient
cedar-tree which is still shown to travellers, and wept. Yet within a
week fortune smiled on him again, for he and the few comrades who
remained to him fought and won the battle of Otompan against thousands
of the Indians, Cortes killing their chief Cihuaca with his own hand.

The Aztecs rejoiced at the departure of the Spaniards from their
capital Mexico or Tenoctitlan, but their joy was premature. First the
small-pox, introduced into the country by the white men, fell upon the
city and swept away thousands, among them Cuitlahua, the emperor who
succeeded to Montezuma, and then came the news that the indomitable
Cortes was marching upon them with a great army of native allies and
large reinforcements of Spaniards from overseas. Guatimozin, the new
emperor, made every possible preparation for defence and the siege
began, a siege as cruel as that of Jerusalem and perhaps more bloody.
First Cortes laid waste the cities about Mexico, then he attacked the
Queen of the Valley herself--attacked it again and again till at
length it was a ruin and tens of thousands of its inhabitants were
dead by starvation, by pestilence, and by the sword. On either side
the combat was one of desperate courage, but notwithstanding
occasional successes on the part of the Aztecs, such as that when they
captured and sacrificed some sixty Spania