Sandoval, now considering his troops out of danger, gave the command of his division to captain Luis Marin; and, after his wounds were bandaged up, he set off, accompanied by two horse, for Cortes' head-quarters. On his road he was continually harassed by bodies of the enemy; for, as I have above mentioned, Quauhtemoctzin had everywhere stationed troops in order to cut off our communication.
Sandoval, on coming up to Cortes, said to him, "Alas! general, what a shocking business this has been! Thus miserably have your great schemes terminated!" At these words, tears started from Cortes' eyes, and he cried out, "O! my son Sandoval! if this misfortune has befallen us for my sins, I have not been so entirely the cause of it as you suppose. The royal treasurer Juan de Alderete neglected to do his duty, and did not obey my orders to fill up the opening in the causeway. The man is not accustomed to war, nor does he know how to obey."
Alderete was standing by when Cortes uttered these words, and he could not restrain himself from retorting the guilt upon Cortes, and maintained that when the latter was advancing victoriously forward, he had spurred his men on to follow quickly at his heels, and cried out, "Forward, cavaliers!" Nothing had at all been mentioned about filling up the opening in the causeway, otherwise he, with the company under his command, would certainly have attended to it. Others again reproached Cortes for not having sooner ordered off the numerous body of allies from the causeway; and, in short, many disagreeable remarks were made on both sides, which I would rather not repeat here.
During this sharp altercation, two of the brigantines which had accompanied Cortes as he advanced along the causeway, made their reappearance. Nothing had been seen or heard of these for a length of time, and they had been given up as lost. It appears they had become jammed in between the stakes, in which awkward position they were attacked by numbers of canoes. At length, after a great deal of hard fighting, they succeeded, with the assistance of a strong breeze, and the utmost exertions of their oars, to break through the stakes and gain the deep water, but the whole of the men on board were wounded. Cortes was exceedingly rejoiced at their safe return, for he had given them up for lost, but had not mentioned this to his troops, that they might not become more disheartened than they already were.
Upon this Cortes despatched Sandoval in all haste to Tlacupa to see how matters stood with our division, to assist us in the defence of our encampment, if, at least, we were not totally overthrown. Francisco de Lugo was ordered to accompany him thither, as it was naturally to be supposed that small detachments of the enemy were everywhere dispersed. Cortes acquainted Sandoval at the same time that he had previously despatched Tapia with three horse there for the same purpose, but feared they must have been killed on the road.
When Sandoval was about to mount his horse, Cortes embraced him, with these words: "Go, for heaven's sake! You see I cannot be everywhere at the same moment: to you I intrust the chief command of the three divisions for the present, as I am wounded and almost exhausted with fatigue. I beg of you rescue our three divisions from destruction. I doubt not that Alvarado and his troops have defended themselves like brave warriors; yet I cannot help fearing he has been forced to succumb to the overwhelming numbers of these dogs, for you see how I have fared with my division, and it may have gone worse with his."
Upon this Sandoval and Lugo threw themselves on horseback and galloped off for our encampment, where they arrived about the hour of vespers, but we had received intelligence of Cortes' defeat many hours beforehand. They still found us engaged with the Mexicans, who were doing their utmost to storm our camp from that side of the causeway where we had pulled down several houses, while, at the same time, they attacked us with their canoes from the side towards the lake. They had driven one of our brigantines between the stakes, killed two of the men, and wounded all the rest.
When Sandoval saw how I and many of my comrades stood up to our middles in the water to get the brigantine clear of the stakes, he applauded our courage, and bid us do our utmost to save the vessel from falling into the hands of the enemy, as the Mexicans had already fastened many ropes to her, and were trying to tow her off into the town behind their canoes. Sandoval's encouraging words were not lost upon us, and we fought with such determination that at length we rescued the vessel. On this occasion I was wounded by an arrow.
While we were fighting for the possession of this brigantine, fresh bodies of the enemy kept continually crowding up the causeway. We received many more wounds, and even Sandoval was hit in the face by a stone at the moment Alvarado was coming up to his assistance with another small body of the cavalry; and when Sandoval saw how daringly I, with many of my comrades, opposed the enemy, he ordered us to retreat slowly, that all our horses might not be sacrificed. As we did not immediately obey his commands, he cried out to us, "Are we then all to perish for your sakes? For heaven's sake, my brave companions, make good your retreat!" These words were scarcely out of his mouth when both he and his horse were again wounded. We now ordered our Indian allies to move off the causeway, and we began to retreat slowly but with our faces always turned towards the enemy. Our musketeers and crossbow-men kept up a continued fire upon them; the cavalry at intervals charged the enemy's line at half speed, and Pedro Moreno thundered away with the cannon. But whatever number of the infuriated enemy we might mow down, it mattered not, they still continued to follow us, for they had made up their minds to overcome us that very night and sacrifice us to their idols.
After we had at last, with excessive toil, crossed a deep opening, and had arrived at our encampment, where we were pretty secure from the enemy's attacks, Sandoval, Lugo, Tapia, and Alvarado stood together relating what had befallen each of the respective divisions, when all in a moment the large drum of Huitzilopochtli again resounded from the summit of the temple, accompanied by all the hellish music of shell trumpets, horns, and other instruments. The sound was truly dismal and terrifying, but still more agonizing was all this to us when we looked up and beheld how the Mexicans were mercilessly sacrificing to their idols our unfortunate companions, who had been captured in Cortes' flight across the opening.