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Ned, early the next morning, saw Santa Anna with his brilliant escort ride away toward the capital, while General Cos resumed his march to Vera Cruz. Almonte did not reappear at all, and the boy surmised that he was under orders to join the dictator. Ned continued on foot among the Tlascalans. Cos offered him no kindness whatever, and his pride would not let him ask for it.
Rest after your fatigues, for you have much need to do so; in a little while I will visit you again. So saying, he withdrew with his attendants. The general's first care was to inspect his new quarters. The rooms were of great size, and afforded accommodation for the whole army the Tlascalans probably encamping in the outer courts.
This occurrence did more for the conversion of the natives than all the preaching of Father Olmedo. Several of the Indian princesses were now baptized, and given in marriage to the officers of Cortés. One, who was the daughter of Xicotencatl, became the wife of Alvarado, who was always a great favourite with the Tlascalans.
Now as has been said, some of these Otomie clans had joined the Tlascalans, and as their allies had taken part in the war on the side of the Spaniards, therefore it was decided at a solemn council that Otomie and I her husband should go on an embassy to the chief town of the nation, that was known as the City of Pines, and strive to win it back to the Aztec standard.
Now the Spaniards to the number of fifteen hundred or so, accompanied by some six or eight thousand Tlascalans, were emerging on the causeway in a long thin line. Guatemoc and I rushed before them, collecting men as we went, till we came to the first canal, where canoes were already gathering by scores.
Charles Niehaus, whose work is always direct and convincing, has made us feel the Spanish conqueror's own sense of victory. We know that now Mexico, the Tlascalans and the Emperor Montezuma have been vanquished, that the victor's ruthless ambition is already dreaming of the conquest of New Spain and the navigation of the Pacific.
Iztapalapan was the first; the attacking party, after a sharp struggle, succeeded in entering the town; many of the inhabitants fled in their canoes, but those who remained were massacred by the Tlascalans in spite of all Cortés could do to restrain them.
Guatemoc and I were swept over that bridge by the first rush of the enemy, as leaves are swept in a gale, and though both of us won through safely we saw each other no more that night. With us and after us came the long array of Spaniards and Tlascalans, and from every side the Aztecs poured upon them, clinging to their struggling line as ants cling to a wounded worm.
As he was incapable of holding his shield, he had it strapped to his left arm; and with three hundred picked men, and some thousands of the Tlascalans, sallied out from the palace, and attacked the Aztecs in the temple at the foot of the pyramid. The Spaniards made their way through these without much difficulty, and then commenced the ascent of the pyramid.
The Aztecs fled into the town, but were driven through its streets at the point of the lance, and compelled once more to abandon it, after which the Tlascalans pillaged and set fire to the houses, much against the will of Cortés, but they were a fierce race, and sometimes dangerous to friends as well as foes.
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