This degree of disrelish for battle was a phenomenon, so unusual in the character of barbarians brave not only to folly, but to madness, that a wary commander would have laid it to heart, and pondered over it with suspicion. But not so the Captain-General. He remembered, with Salamanca, that the sound of the enormous drum on the temple of Mexitli, with which, each morning, the Mexican emperor gave the signal for battle, had not yet been heard; and as there seemed to be as close, and almost as fanatical, a connexion between the thunder of this instrument and the courage of the pagans, as he had found, in former days, in the case of the sacred horn, he did not doubt that their present timidity was caused entirely by the failure of the signal. Perhaps he thought it increased also by their sense of weakness; for, now that he was nigh, it became obvious that their numbers were much less considerable than they had appeared at a distance. At all events, they were in fear, and they wavered; which was enough to give his valour the upperhand of his prudence.—It is with martial ardour as with a pestilence;—it ravens most furiously among the ranks of fear.
Fierce, therefore, was the zeal of his cavaliers, and their hearts flamed at the thought of blood. They raised their voices in a cry of victory, and bounded like thunderbolts among their opponents. The shock was decisive; in a moment, the whole mass of pagans was put to rout. They flung down their arms, and betook themselves to flight. Those who could, fled down along the dike into the city; others flung themselves into the water, and swam to the island, or to the neighbouring ruins. The only ones who made resistance, were those whose hearts were transfixed by Spanish lances, before they could turn to retreat. Such men uttered the yell of battle, and, in their dying agonies, thrust with their own hands, the spears further through their vitals, that they might be nearer to the foe, and strike the macana once more for Tenochtitlan.
"On, ye men of the foot!" cried the Captain-General. "Let the Tlascalans fire the houses behind me; for now we are again upon the island. Charge, cavaliers, charge! The saints open a path for us. Charge, my brothers, charge! and viva for Spain and our honour!"
CHAPTER XV.
The horsemen pursued along the dike, spearing, or tumbling into the water, the few who had the heart to resist; and so great was, or seemed, the terror of the barbarians, that the victors penetrated even within the limits of the island, until the turrets of houses, from which they were separated only by the lateral canals, darkened them with their shadows. Upon these were clustered many pagans, who shot at them both arrows and darts, but with so little energy, that it seemed as if despondence or fatuity had robbed them of their usual vigour. Hence, the excited cavaliers gave them but little attention, not doubting that they would be soon dislodged by the infantry. They were even regardless of circumstances still more menacing; and if a lethargy beset the infidel that day, it is equally certain that a species of distraction overwhelmed the brains of the Spaniards. It seemed as if the great object of their ambition depended more upon their following the fugitives to the temple-square than upon any other feat; and to this they encouraged one another with vivas and invocations to the saints. They could already behold the huge bulk of the pyramid, rising up at the distance of a mile, as if it shut up the street; and its terraced sides, thronged with multitudes of men, seemed to prove to them, that the frighted Mexicans were running to their gods for protection. It is true, they perceived vast bodies of infidels blocking up the avenue afar, as if to dispute their passage beyond the canalled portion of the island; but they regarded them with scorn.
They rushed onwards, occasionally arrested by some flying group, but only for a moment.
There was a place, not far within the limits of the island, where they found the causeway, for the space of at least sixty paces, so delved and pared away on either side, that it scarce afforded a passage for two horsemen abreast. The device was of recent execution, for they beheld the mattocks of labourers still sticking in the earth, as if that moment abandoned. This circumstance, so strange, so novel, and so ominous, it might be supposed, would have aroused them to suspicion. The passage, as it was, so contracted, broken, and rugged, looked prodigiously like the Al-Sirat, or bridge to paradise of the Mussulmans,—that arch, narrow as the thread of a famished spider, over which it is so much easier to be precipitated than to pass with safety. Yet grim and threatening as it was, there was but one among the cavaliers who raised a voice of warning. As the Captain-General, without a moment's hesitation, pushed his horse forward, to lead the way, and without a single expression of surprise, the ancient hidalgo, who had twice before sounded a note of alarm, now exclaimed,—
"For the love of heaven, pause, señor! This is a trap that will destroy us."
"Art thou afraid, Alderete?" cried Cortes, looking back to him, grimly. "This is no place for a King's Treasurer," (such was Alderete, the royal Contador.)—"Get thee back, then, to the first ditch, and fill it up to thy liking. This will be charge enough for a volunteer."