All was quiet when the Spaniards crept from their refuge to try to escape along the dyke.
It was a rainy night, and intensely dark; and with their horses' hoofs and little cannon muffled, the Spaniards moved as quietly as possible along the narrow bank, which stretched like a tongue from the island city to the mainland.
CHURCH, PUEBLO OF ISLETA.
See page 163.
This dyke was cut by three broad sluices, and to cross them the soldiers carried a portable bridge. But despite their care the savages promptly detected the movement. Scarcely had they issued from their barracks and got upon the dyke, when the boom of the monster war-drum, tlapan huehuetl, from the summit of the pyramid of sacrifice, burst upon the still night,—the knell of their hopes. It is an awesome sound still, the deep bellowing of that great three-legged drum, which is used to-day, and can be heard more than fifteen miles; and to the Spaniards it was the voice of doom. Great bonfires shot up from the teocalli, and they could see the savages swarming to overwhelm them.
Hurrying as fast as their wounds and burdens would permit, the Spaniards reached the first sluice in safety. They threw their bridge over the gulf, and began crossing. Then the Indians came swarming in their canoes at either side of the dyke, and attacked with characteristic ferocity. The beset soldiers fought as they struggled on. But as the artillery was crossing the bridge it broke, and down went cannon, horses, and men forever. Then began the indescribable horrors of "The Sad Night." There was no retreat for the Spaniards, for they were assailed on every side. Those behind were pushing on, and there was no staying even for that gap of black water. Over the brink man and horse were crowded in the darkness, and still those behind came on, until at last the channel was choked with corpses, and the survivors floundered across the chaos of their dead. Velasquez, the leader of the vanguard, was slain, and Spaniard and Tlaxcaltecan were falling like wheat before the sickle. The second sluice, as well as each side of the dyke, was blocked with canoes full of savage warriors; and there was another sanguinary mêlée until this gap too was filled with slain, and over the bridge of human corpses the fugitives gained the other bank. Alvarado, fighting with the rearmost to hold in check the savages who followed along the dyke, was the last to cross; and before he could follow his comrades the current suddenly broke through the ghastly obstruction, and swept the channel clear. His faithful horse had been killed under him; he himself was sorely wounded; his friends were gone, and the merciless foe hemmed him in. We cannot but be reminded of the Roman hero,—
"Of him who held the bridge so well
In the brave days of old."
Alvarado's case was fully as desperate as that of Horatius; and he rose as manlike to the occasion. With one swift glance about, he saw that to plunge into the flood would be sure death. So, with a supreme effort of his muscular frame, he thrust down his lance and sprang! It was a distance of eighteen feet. Considerably longer jumps have been recorded. Our own Washington once made a running jump of over twenty feet in his athletic youth. But considering the surroundings, the darkness, his wounds, and his load of armor, the wonderful leap of Alvarado has perhaps never been surpassed:—
"For fast his blood was flowing,
And he was sore in pain;
And heavy was his armor,
And spent with changing blows."