isure, for our spears and arrows could
scarcely harm them at such a distance. Still we were not idle, for
seeing that the wooden gates must soon be down, we demolished houses on
either side of them and filled up the roadway with stones and rubbish.
At the rear of the heap thus formed I caused a great trench to be dug,
which could not be passed by horsemen and ordnance till it was filled
in again. All along the main street leading to the great square of the
teocalli I threw up other barricades, protected in the front and rear by
dykes cut through the roadway, and in case the Spaniards should try to
turn our flank and force a passage through the narrow and tortuous lanes
to the right and left, I also barricaded the four entrances to the great
square or market place.

Till nightfall the Spaniards bombarded the shattered remains of the
gates and the earthworks behind them, doing no great damage beyond the
killing of about a score of people by cannon shot and arquebuss balls.
But they attempted no assault that day. At length the darkness fell and
their fire ceased, but not so our labours. Most of the men must guard
the gates and the weak spots in the walls, and therefore the building of
the barricades was left chiefly to the women, working under my command
and that of my captains. Otomie herself took a share in the toil, an
example that was followed by every lady and indeed by every woman in
the city, and there were many of them, for the women outnumbered the men
among the Otomie, and moreover not a few of them had been made widows on
that same day.

It was a strange sight to see them in the glare of hundreds of torches
split from the resin pine that gave its name to the city, as all night
long they moved to and fro in lines, each of them staggering beneath the
weight of a basket of earth or a heavy stone, or dug with wooden spades
at the hard soil, or laboured at the pulling down of houses. They never
complained, but worked on sullenly and despairingly; no groan or tear
broke from them, no, not even from those whose husbands and sons had
been hurled that morning from the precipices of the pass. They knew that
resistance would be useless and that their doom was at hand, but no cry
arose among them of surrender to the Spaniards. Those of them who spoke
of the matter at all said with Otomie, that it was better to die free
than to live as slaves, but the most did not speak; the old and the
young, mother, wife, widow, and maid,