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Along the whole line, crowds of people watched the procession of the troops; gazing with surprise and admiration at the cavaliers on horseback, and at the flashing armor and arms of the Spaniards; and with wrath and indignation at the Tlascalan army, which followed in their rear. The street was in many places intersected by canals.
They were followed by the baggage, after which came what was numerically the main portion of the army, six thousand five hundred Tlascalan soldiers. Keeping on by the shore of the lake, and crossing the narrow strip of hand dividing the Lake of Xochical from that of Tezcuco, they arrived at the head of the great causeway running across the lake to the island on which the capital was built.
With the first faint streak of dawn, on the morning of November 8, 1519, the Spanish general was astir and mustering his followers, and as the sun rose above the eastern mountains he set forth with his little troop of horsemen as a sort of advanced guard, the Spanish infantry followed, then the baggage, and finally the dark files of the Tlascalan warriors.
Cortez dismissed them with many presents and, with his Tlascalan army, set forward towards the capital. As they proceeded on their way, parties came in from various towns on the plateau with friendly messages.
He was consoled, however, by finding that many of his most trusted companions had escaped. Sandoval, Alvarado, Olid, Ordaz and Avila were safe; and so, to his great joy, was Marina. She had, with a daughter of a Tlascalan chief, been placed under the escort of a party of Tlascalan warriors, in the van of the column, and had passed unharmed through the dangers of the night.
The Tlascalan wall, described by Cortés and Diaz, can never have been in existence, for Mr. Wilson has been on the very spot and found no remains of a wall. Other travellers, it may be remarked, have been more fortunate. Cortés states, that, in a march across the mountains, some of his Indian allies perished of thirst. This Mr.
The Cholulans fought to the last, and either threw themselves over the parapet, or perished in the flames. In the meantime, many of the wooden houses in the town had caught fire, and the flames spread rapidly. The Spanish cavalry charging through the street trampled the Mexicans under foot, while the Tlascalan allies gratified their long enmity against the Cholulans by slaying them without mercy.
But amid all these friendly demonstrations the general never for a moment relaxed the strict discipline of the camp, and no soldier was allowed to leave his quarters without special permission. At first this offended the Tlascalan chiefs, as they thought it showed distrust of them.
Olid, one of his followers, sprang to his rescue, severed the arm of one of the natives, and ran another through the body; and being joined by a comrade named Lerma, and by a Tlascalan chief, stood over the body of Cortez and drove off his foes, dispatching three more of his assailants; but Olid fell, mortally wounded, by the side of his leader.
The first time was when Marina had brought her a certain robe in which she might escape from the camp of Cortes, and she had spoken to Marina of that robe; and the second when on this same day she had played her part to the Tlascalan, and had struck him down with her own hand as he bent over me.
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