At the firing of a harquebus, the fatal signal, the crowd of unsuspecting Cholulans were massacred as they stood, almost without resistance. Meantime the other Indians without the square commenced an attack on the Spaniards, but the heavy guns of the battery played upon them with murderous effect, and cavalry advanced to support the attack.
The steeds, the guns, the weapons of the Spaniards, were all new to the Cholulans. Notwithstanding the novelty of the terrific spectacle, the flash of arms mingling with the deafening roar of the artillery, the desperate Indians pushed on to take the places of their fallen comrades.
While this scene of bloodshed was progressing, the Tlascalans, as arranged, were hastening to the assistance of their Spanish allies. The Cholulans, when thus attacked in rear by their traditional enemies, speedily gave way, and tried to save themselves in the great temple and elsewhere. The "Holy City," as it was called, was converted into a pandemonium of massacre. In memory of the signal defeat of the Cholulans, Cortés converted the chief part of the great temple into a Christian church.
Envoys again arrived from Mexico with rich presents and a message vindicating the pusillanimous Emperor from any share in the conspiracy against Cortés. Continuing their march, the allied army of Spaniards and Tlascalans proceeded till they reached the mountains which separate the table-land of Puebla from that of Mexico. To cross this range they followed the route which passes between the mighty Popocatepetl (i. e., "the smoking mountain") and another called the "White Woman" from its broad robe of snow. The first lies about forty miles southeast of the capital to which their march was directed. It is more than 2,000 feet higher than Mont Blanc, and has two principal craters, one of which is about 1,000 feet deep and has large deposits of sulfur which are regularly mined. Popocatepetl has long been only a quiescent volcano, but during the invasion by Cortés it was often burning, especially at the time of the siege of Tlascala. That was naturally interpreted all over the district of Anahuac to be a bad omen, associated with the landing and approach of the Spaniards. Cortés insisted on several descents being made into the great crater till sufficient sulfur was collected to supply gunpowder to his army. The icy cold winds, varied by storms of snow and sleet, were more trying to the Europeans than the Tlascalans, but some relief was found in the stone shelters which had been built at certain intervals along the roads for the accommodation of couriers and other travelers.
At last they reached the crest of the sierra which unites Popocatepetl, the "great Volcan," to its sister mountain the "Woman in White." Soon after, at a turning of the road, the invaders enjoyed their first view of the famous Valley of Mexico or Tenochtitlan, with its beautiful lakes in their setting of cultivated plains, here and there varied by woods and forests. "In the midst, like some Indian empress with her coronal of pearls, the fair city with her white towers and pyramidal temples, reposing as it were on the bosom of the waters—the far-famed 'Venice of the Aztecs.'"
This view of the "Promised Land" will remind some of the picturesque account given by Livy (xxi, 35) of Hannibal reaching the top of the pass over the Alps and pointing out the fair prospect of Italy to his soldiers. We may thus render the passage: "On the ninth day the ridge of the Alps was reached, over ground generally trackless and by roundabout ways.... The order for marching being given at break of day, the army were sluggishly advancing over ground wholly covered with snow, listlessness, and despair depicted on the features of all, Hannibal went on in front, and after ordering the soldiers to halt on a height which commanded a distant view, far and wide, points out to them Italy and the plains of Lombardy on both banks of the Po, at the foot of the Alps, telling them that at that moment they were crossing not only the walls of Italy but of the Roman capital; that the rest of the march was easy and downhill." The situation of Hannibal and his Carthaginians surveying Italy for the first time is in some respects closely analogous to that of Cortés pointing out the Valley of Mexico to his Spanish soldiers.
CHAPTER VII
CORTÉS AND MONTEZUMA
We have now seen the Spanish conquerors with a large contingent of 6,000 natives surmounting the mountains to the east of the Mexican Valley and looking down upon the Lake of Tezcuco on which were built the sister capitals. Montezuma, the Aztec monarch, was already in a state of dismay, and sent still another embassy to propitiate the terrible Cortés, with a great present of gold and robes of the most precious fabrics and workmanship; and a promise that, if the foreign general would turn back toward Vera Cruz, the Mexicans would pay down four loads of gold for himself and one to each of his captains, besides a yearly tribute to their king in Europe.