At every canal in place of a bridge was a rampart, that must be battered down by the heavy guns. Still, doggedly fighting, the besiegers made their slow way to the square, on one side of which stood the quarters they had evacuated on the noche triste, and on the other the great temple of Huitzil. As the Spaniards cleared the courtyard of the temple, Huetzin and his agile followers dashed up the long flights of steps to its top. Here they found only a few frantic priests, whom they pitched headlong from the lofty platform. In the shrine was a new image of the war-god, more hideous and more lavishly covered with gold than its predecessor. This they dragged from its pedestal, and, with an exulting heart, the young Toltec saw it, too, go thundering and crashing to the base of the great teocal.
Outraged and infuriated by this sacrilege, the Aztec warriors gathered about the temple in such overwhelming numbers, that the besiegers were forced back, down the avenue up which they had come; and only by the most determined fighting did Huetzin and his followers escape from being cut off, and rejoin their friends.
Although on this occasion the besiegers were driven from the city on all sides, Huetzin at least felt that the day's fighting and losses had not been in vain. He knew that his time for triumph was at hand, and that, with this overthrow of their war-god, the power of the Aztec priests had received a blow from which it would never recover.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
ALDERETE'S FATAL ERROR
The next day another assault was made that penetrated, as before, to the square of the temple. On this occasion the Spaniards, filled with hatred against the ancient palace in which they had suffered so much, set fire to it in a hundred places, and soon had the satisfaction of seeing it in ruins. As on the previous occasion, the retreat to their own camp was so bitterly assailed that few reached it without bearing on their bodies smarting tokens of the fight. These assaults were continued for many days, though with but slight results; for, wherever the besiegers filled canal openings during the day, the Aztecs cleared them out again at night. They also, contrary to their usual custom, made constant night attacks upon the Christian camps, so that the Spaniards were allowed no rest.
THIS THEY DRAGGED FROM ITS PEDESTAL.
At this stage of the siege, Guatamotzin succeeded in capturing and destroying two of the brigantines, by luring them into a trap of stout stakes, driven just below the surface of the water. Thus, with varying fortunes did the days and weeks of the siege pass, until July came, and still the city made no sign of surrender. Famine was beginning to stalk through its streets, and its hardy defenders were sickening of the brackish water with which they eked out the scanty supplies nightly smuggled to them in canoes from the mainland; but the priests still promised ultimate victory, and were still believed.