re killed, and fifteen of the party of Narvaez.

The artful conqueror loaded the vanquished with favors, and soon
succeeded in winning nearly all of them to engage in his service. With
enthusiasm these new recruits, thus singularly gained, rallied around
him, eager to march in the paths of glory to which such a leader could
guide them.

This achievement was hardly accomplished ere a new peril menaced the
victorious Spaniard. An express arrived from the Mexican metropolis
with the intelligence that the Mexicans had risen in arms; that they
had attacked the Spaniards in their quarters, and had killed several,
and had wounded more; that they had also seized the two brigantines,
destroyed the magazine of provisions, and that the whole garrison was
in imminent danger of destruction.

Immediately collecting his whole force, now greatly augmented by the
accession of the vanquished troops of Narvaez, with their cavalry and
artillery, Cortez hastened back from Zempoalla to the rescue of
his beleaguered camp. His army now, with his strangely acquired
re-enforcement, amounted to over a thousand infantry and a hundred
cavalry, besides several thousands of the natives, whom he recruited
from his allies, the Totonacs.

The danger was so imminent that his troops were urged to the utmost
possible rapidity of march. At Tlascala, two thousand of those fierce
warriors joined him; but as he advanced into the territory of
Montezuma, he met every where the evidences of strong disaffection to
his cause. The nobles avoided his camp. The inhabitants of cities and
villages retired at his approach. No food was brought to him. The
natives made no attempt to oppose a force so resistless, but they left
before him a path of silence and solitude.

When the Spaniards arrived at the causeway which led to the city, they
found, to their surprise, that the Mexicans had not destroyed the
bridges, but throughout the whole length of this narrow passage no
person was to be seen. No one welcomed or opposed. Fiercely those
stern men strode on, over the causeway and through the now deserted
streets, till they entered into the encampment of their comrades.

The insurrection had been suddenly excited by an atrocious massacre
on the part of Alvarado. This leader, a brave soldier, but destitute
either of tact or judgment, suspected, or pretended to suspect, that
the Mexican nobles were conspiring to attack him. One of their
religious festivals was at hand, whe