Hernando Cortez / Makers of History

by John S. C. Abbott

For a little time they advanced unmolested; but the Mexicans were watching their movements, and were silently making dispositions for a tremendous onset. Suddenly the shout of an innumerable multitude and the clash of arms rose fearfully in the dark night air, and from every quarter the natives came rushing on, and stones, javelins, darts, and arrows rattled like hail-stones upon helmet and buckler. Every inch of the way was now contested. The progress of the Spaniards, though slow, was resistless, the cannon and the musketry sweeping down all obstacles.

Arrival at the canal.
Imminent peril.

At last they arrived at one of the numerous canals which every where intersected the city. The bridge was destroyed, and the deep waters flowing from the lake cut off all retreat. The wooden bridge, prepared for such an emergence, was thrown across the chasm. The head of the Spanish column fought its way over successfully; but, unfortunately, the weight of the artillery and of the dense throng wedged the timbers so fast into the stones that all their efforts could not again remove them. Their peril was growing every moment more imminent, as the roused natives were thronging to every point where the retiring foe could be assailed. They were thus compelled to leave the bridge behind them.

Filling the breach.

Advancing precipitately, the Spaniards soon arrived at a second breach. Here they found themselves hemmed in on all sides, and they had no means of bridging the gap; but, planting their cannon so as to hold the natives at bay, every available hand was employed in filling the chasm with stones and timbers torn from the demolished and smouldering dwellings. The labor was difficult and perilous, for they were incessantly assailed by the most pelting storm of the missiles of destruction.

Slow advance.

For two days this terrific conflict raged. Seven breaches in the canals they were compelled thus to bridge with stones and timbers torn from the adjacent streets; but the Spaniards still slowly advanced, triumphing with difficulty over every obstacle which the natives could interpose. Though they thus sternly fought their way along, trampling beneath them the mutilated bodies of the dying and of the dead, at the close of the second day they found their foes more numerous and their situation more desperate than ever.

The storm.
The causeway.
Multitude of the enemy.

As the gloom of night again descended, a deeper, heavier gloom rested upon all in the heart of the Spanish camp. A wailing storm arose of wind and rain, and nature mourned and wept as if in sympathy with the woes of man. Availing themselves of the darkness and of the uproar of the midnight tempest, though weary, faint, and bleeding, they urged their steps along the war-scathed streets, for a time strangely encountering no opposition. But when they reached the long causeway, nearly two miles in length and but thirty feet wide, by which alone they could reach the land, a yell of exultation suddenly rose from the black and storm-lashed waters of the lake, loud as the heaviest thunders. The whole lake, on both sides of the causeway, seemed alive with the boats of the natives, and the Spaniards were immediately assailed by the swarming multitudes, who, in the fierce and maddened strife, set all danger at defiance.

Fury of the attack.