It was even as the magician had said. From the moment that De Morla took the fatal leap, the rowers ceased paddling in their canoes, as if certain of his fate, or unwilling to follow so feeble a prey, and remained huddled together, as though they awaited the approach of a more tempting quarry. They had not perceived the two companions. Just as Botello was about to creep under a falconet, around whose wheels the corses lay very thick, the strong voice of Cortes was heard rising over the din, which, at some quarter or other of the causeway, was kept up incessantly during the whole conflict. It echoed again, sustained and strengthened by the voices of a considerable party.
"They approach!" said Botello. "They are a-horse too; I hear the trampling. God quicken the rear! Methought there were many who followed me."
"Hark!" cried the cavalier. "The foul knaves desert us! their voices are weaker; they fly again to the land!"
"Here's that which shall fetch them back, if they be men!" exclaimed Botello, catching up a port-fuse not yet extinguished, striking it on his arm to shake off the ashes, and whirling it in the air till it glowed and almost blazed. "It will show them, there be some living yet; and, with God's blessing, will scatter yon ambushed heathen like plashing water-drops. Ojala! and all ye fiends of air and water, of earth and of hell, that are waiting for pagan souls, carry my hail-shot true, and have at your prey!"
So saying, the conjurer applied the match. The roar of the explosion was succeeded not only by the yells of Mexicans, dying in their broken canoes, or paddling away from so dangerous a vicinity, but by Spanish shouts, both on the rear and in front.
"On, brave hearts!" cried Cortes; "there be bold knaves yet at the ordnance!"
The next moment the little band of horse that headed the relief, sprang into the lake, and swimming aside, so as to avoid the sunken bodies, and the bales still floating in the ditch, crossed over to the cannon; while a large body of men, arranged with such order, that they blocked up the whole causeway from side to side, came marching up from the rear, fighting as they fled, and still valiantly resisting the multitudes that pursued both on the dike and in the water.
"Thanks be to God!" cried Don Hernan, rejoiced that so many lived, and yet appalled at the numbers and ferocious determination of the foes, who still, like venomous insects following the persecuted herd, pursued whithersoever the Christians fled. "Art thou alive, De Leon?—Praised be St. James, who listened to my prayer! Turn ye now, and let us succour the rest."
"They are in heaven," said De Leon, with a faint voice, for he was severely wounded, as indeed were all his crew. "Push on, in the name of God, all who can swim.—The others must perish."
"Hold! stay!" exclaimed Cortes. "Fling the cannon into the sluice.—Think not of the enemy. Heave over my good falconets: they will make a bridge for ye all."