All night the listening sentinels on the parapet noted the darkness filled with sounds of preparation from every quarter of the city. And they crossed themselves, and muttered the names of saints and good angels, and thought shudderingly of the morrow.
CHAPTER VII
IN THE LEAGUER YET
Guatamozin took little rest that night. The very uncertainty of the combat multiplied his cares. It was not to be supposed that his enemy would keep to the palace, content day after day with receiving assaults; that was neither his character nor his policy. To-morrow he would certainly open the gates, and try conclusions in the streets The first duty, therefore, was to provide for such a contingency. So the ’tzin went along all the streets leading to the old palace, followed by strong working-parties; and where the highest houses fronted each other, he stopped, and thereat the details fell to making barricades, and carrying stones and logs to the roofs. As a final measure of importance, he cut passages through the walls of the houses and gardens, that companies might be passed quickly and secretly from one thoroughfare to another.
Everywhere he found great cause for mourning; but the stories of the day were necessarily lost in the demands of the morrow.
He visited his caciques, and waited on the lord Cuitlahua to take his orders; then he passed to the temples, whence, as he well knew, the multitudes in great part derived their inspiration. The duties of the soldier, politician, and devotee discharged, he betook himself to the chinampa, and to Tula told the heroisms of the combat, and his plans and hopes; there he renewed his own inspirations.
Toward morning he returned to the great temple. Hualpa and Io’, having followed him throughout his round, spread their mantles on the roof, and slept: he could not; between the work of yesterday and that to come, his mind played pendulously, and with such forceful activity as forbade slumber. From the quarters of the strangers, moreover, he heard constantly the ringing of hammers, the neighing and trampling of steeds, and voices of direction. It was a long night to him; but at last over the crown of the White Woman the dawn flung its first light into the valley; and then he saw the palace, its walls manned, the gunners by their pieces, and in the great court lines of footmen, and at the main gate horsemen standing by their bridles.
“Thanks, O gods!” he cried. “Walls will not separate my people from their enemies to-day!”
With the sunrise the assault began,—a repetition of that of the day before.
Then the guns opened; and while the infidels reeled under the fire, out of the gates rode Cortes and his chivalry, a hundred men-at-arms. Into the mass they dashed. Space sufficient having been won, they wheeled southward down the beautiful street, followed by detachments of bowmen and arquebusiers and Tlascalans. With them also went Mesa and his guns.