With this evidence that the little garrison still held out, and that the cross was still uplifted in the very shadow of Huitzil's temple, the troops entered Tenochtitlan with lighter hearts and a brisker tread. As they marched through its silent streets, these appeared even more deserted than had those of Tezcuco. The active population of former days had vanished, and the tramp of iron-shod hoofs only awoke melancholy echoes from empty houses. The veterans, who had seen these same streets teeming with eager multitudes, gazed about them in bewilderment, while the levies of Narvaez jeered at them for having, with all their boasted prowess, only conquered a city of the dead.
Finally they came to the Spanish quarters. The great gates behind which their friends had been besieged so long, were flung joyously open, and the new-comers were received with greetings as hearty as they were sincere. To the veterans little seemed changed since their departure. Some traces of the siege, in the shape of fire-blackened buildings and shattered walls, were to be seen here and there, but Montezuma was still a prisoner; military order still prevailed, and, with the advent of this fresh army, there was every reason to believe that the former state of affairs would speedily be restored. Thus Cortes believed, and thus he wrote to the officer whom he had left in command at Vera Cruz.
Only two comparatively unimportant matters gave him any uneasiness. One of these was the escape of Cuitlahua, the king's brother, and thus heir to the Aztec throne, which had been made only a few days before. The other was Montezuma's complaint that Tlalco, his favorite priestly adviser, was no longer permitted to visit him. When Cortes questioned Alvarado concerning this, the latter denied having refused admittance to any person whom the king desired to see. He added that he had noted the absence of this particular priest, but had accounted for it by supposing that he had joined his fellows in inciting the present insurrection. Both Huetzin and Sandoval deeply regretted that they were unable to question Tlalco concerning certain matters. Knowing what they did of his personality, they feared lest it should have been discovered by the chief priest, in which case they knew there was little hope of ever again meeting with the devoted Toltec.
A day or two after his arrival, Cortes, having completed his despatches for Vera Cruz, entrusted them to a messenger who was ordered to proceed to that fort. He set forth; but in less than half an hour, came flying back, terror-stricken and covered with wounds. "The city is in arms!" he cried. "The drawbridges are raised, and no avenue of escape is left!"
Even as he spoke, his words were confirmed by a dark flood of Aztec warriors, sweeping down the great avenue, like some mighty tide that has burst its limits. At the same time the parapeted roofs of neighboring buildings were covered with a multitude of slingers and bowmen, who seemed to spring into existence as though by magic. As the astonished Spaniards gazed on this sudden repopulating of the deserted city with warriors instead of traders, the dread tones of the great serpent drum, thundering forth from Huitzil's temple, proclaimed that the Aztec gods had at length awakened and were about to wage a pitiless, unrelenting war against all followers of the cross.
The ominous booming of the war-drum was instantly answered by the ringing notes of Christian trumpets, summoning every man within the palace-fortress to his post. Their call was so promptly obeyed that ere the tawny Aztec wave reached the wall, every musketeer, cross-bowman, and gunner was in place, and waiting.
A blinding flight of arrows, darts, and stones, from the Aztec front, and a storm of missiles from the house-tops, together with a fierce yell from ten thousand Aztec throats, opened the battle. In reply came a rattling volley from Spanish guns, that mowed down hundreds of the advancing hosts. But they did not falter. Again and again they charged, dashing themselves with impotent fury against the low stone wall separating them from their enemies, and, time after time, the same murderous volley drove them back. Hundreds of them, upborne by hundreds more, scaled the walls, only to fall victims to the Tlascalan maquahuitls, that sprang to meet them from the opposite side. They tried to effect a breach with battering-rams, and to set the quarters on fire with blazing arrows. The woodwork of some of the buildings was soon burning briskly, and a few rods of wall were levelled; but the fire died out without injuring the more substantial portions of the buildings, and a grinning battery lay in wait behind the breach. Like crouched tigers the black guns seemed to leap at the swarming foe, and in a few minutes the breach was choked with lifeless human bodies. Still the battle raged with unabated fury until, with the coming of night, both sides were thankful for a respite.
With earliest sunrise the Spaniards were again under arms and at their posts, but only to see the streets and squares swarming with a more numerous and determined foe than had attacked them on the preceding day. In its approach to military order the hand of the warlike Cuitlahua was visible. Instead of being a disorderly mob, the Aztec force was drawn up in compact bodies, each under its own leader. Above them streamed banners emblazoned with the devices of many cities, while over all soared a golden eagle, bearing in his talons a writhing serpent, the proud cognizance of the Montezumas, and the standard of the Aztec nation. Among the crowded ranks, fierce priests were everywhere to be seen promising the protection of the gods, and inviting their followers to deeds of valor. The gorgeous feather mantles and golden bucklers of the nobles glistened in the morning sun, while above the cotton-armored, or naked ranks of the humbler warriors, a forest of tossing spears reflected his rays from their myriad gleaming points.
As Cortes had determined to take the offensive in this day's fight, he ordered a general discharge of artillery and musketry to be poured into the thickset Aztec ranks before they had made a movement of attack. Under cover of the resulting confusion, the gates were thrown open, and out of the smoke clouds the Spanish cavalry dashed forth in a resistless charge. They were supported by Huetzin with a thousand Tlascalan warriors, and such was the fury of their onslaught that, for several blocks, the Aztecs were swept helplessly before it. Their precipitate flight ended at a barricade of timber and stones, that had been thrown across the great avenue during the night. Here they made so determined a stand that the Spaniards, galled by their hurtling missiles, and an incessant rain of stones from the neighboring house-tops, were compelled to retire.
Two heavy guns, advanced on the run by scores of lusty Tlascalans, soon levelled the barricade. But it had served as a rallying-point for fresh battalions of the enemy, by whom an attempt of the Spaniards to repeat their brilliant charge was doggedly and successfully resisted. Regardless of wounds or death, numbers of them would, at a signal, dart under the horses' bellies and cling to their legs, while others strove to fell the riders from their saddles.