iled us, calling us _luilones_, their severest term
of reproach, and using their utmost endeavours to seize us. As soon as we
thought them within reach, we faced about and repelled them with a few
thrusts of our swords, and then resumed our march. We thus proceeded,
until at last we reached the firm ground near Tacuba, where Cortes,
Sandoval, De Oli, Salcedo, Dominguez, Lares, and others of the cavalry,
and such of the infantry as had got across the bridge before it was broken
down, had already arrived[6].

On our approach, we heard the voices of Sandoval, De Oli, and Morla,
calling on Cortes to return to the assistance of those who were still on
the causeway, who loudly complained of being abandoned. Cortes replied,
that it was a miracle any should have escaped, and that all who returned
to the bridges would assuredly be slain: Yet he actually did return with
ten or twelve of the cavalry and such of the infantry as had escaped
unhurt, and proceeded along the causeway to attempt the succour of such as
might be still engaged. He had not gone far when he met Alvarado badly
wounded, accompanied by three of our soldiers, four of those belonging to
Narvaez, and eight Tlascalans, all severely wounded and covered with blood.
These Alvarado assured him were all that remained of the rear-guard,
Velasquez de Leon and about twenty of the cavalry, and above an hundred of
the infantry, who had belonged to his division, being all slain, or made
prisoners and carried away to be sacrificed. He said farther, that after
all the horses were slain, about eighty had assembled in a body and passed
the first gap on the heaps of luggage and dead bodies; that at the other
bridge the few who now accompanied him were saved by the mercy of God. I
do not now perfectly recollect in what manner he passed that last aperture,
as we were all more attentive to what he related of the death of Velasquez
and above two hundred of our unhappy companions. As to that last fatal
bridge, which is still called _Salto de Alvarado_, or the Leap of Alvarado,
we were too much occupied in saving our own lives to examine whether he
leaped much or little. He must, however, have got over on the baggage and
dead bodies; for the water was too deep for him to have reached the bottom
with his lance, and the aperture was too wide and the sides too high for
him to have leaped over, had he been the most active man in the world. In
about a year after, when we besieged Mexico, I was