umbers and broken in spirit by the terrible experience through which
they had passed, they demanded that the expedition should be abandoned
and themselves conveyed back to Cuba. Before long, the practical wisdom
and personal influence of Cortes had recovered them, reanimated their
spirits, and inspired them with fresh zeal for conquest, and now for
revenge. He added to their numbers the very men sent against him by
Velasquez at this juncture, whom he persuaded to join him; and had the
same success with the members of another rival expedition from Jamaica.
Eventually he set out once more for Mexico, with a force of nearly six
hundred Spaniards, and a number of allies from Tlascala.

_IV.--The Siege and Capture of Mexico_

The siege of Mexico is one of the most memorable and most disastrous
sieges of history. Cortes disposed his troops so as to occupy the three
great causeways leading from the shore of the lake to the city, and thus
cut off the enemy from their sources of supply. He was strong in the
possession of twelve brigantines, built by his orders, which swept the
lake with their guns and frequently defeated the manoeuvres of the
enemy, to whom a sailing ship was as new and as terrible a phenomenon as
were firearms and cavalry. But the Aztecs were strong in numbers, and in
their deadly hatred of the invader, the young emperor, Guatemozin,
opposed to the Spaniards a spirit as dauntless as that of Cortes
himself. Again and again, by fierce attack, by stratagem, and by their
indefatigable labours, the Aztecs inflicted checks, and sometimes even
disaster, upon the Spaniards. Many of these, and of their Indian allies,
fell, or were carried off to suffer the worse fate of the sacrificial
victim. The priests promised the vengeance of the gods upon the
strangers, and at one point Cortes saw his allies melting away from him,
under the power of this superstitious fear. But the threats were
unfulfilled, the allies returned, and doom settled down upon the city.
Famine and pestilence raged with it, and all the worst horrors of a
siege were suffered by the inhabitants.

But still they remained implacable, fighting to their last breath, and
refusing to listen to the repeated and urgent offers of Cortes to spare
them and their property if they would capitulate. It was not until the
15th of August, 1521, that the siege, which began in the latter part of
May, was brought to an end. After a final offer of terms, which
Guatem