ALDERETE'S FATAL ERROR
The next day another assault was made that penetrated, as before, to
the square of the temple. On this occasion the Spaniards, filled with
hatred against the ancient palace in which they had suffered so much,
set fire to it in a hundred places, and soon had the satisfaction of
seeing it in ruins. As on the previous occasion, the retreat to their
own camp was so bitterly assailed that few reached it without bearing
on their bodies smarting tokens of the fight. These assaults were
continued for many days, though with but slight results; for, wherever
the besiegers filled canal openings during the day, the Aztecs cleared
them out again at night. They also, contrary to their usual custom,
made constant night attacks upon the Christian camps, so that the
Spaniards were allowed no rest.
[Illustration: THIS THEY DRAGGED FROM ITS PEDESTAL.]
At this stage of the siege, Guatamotzin succeeded in capturing and
destroying two of the brigantines, by luring them into a trap of stout
stakes, driven just below the surface of the water. Thus, with varying
fortunes did the days and weeks of the siege pass, until July came,
and still the city made no sign of surrender. Famine was beginning to
stalk through its streets, and its hardy defenders were sickening of
the brackish water with which they eked out the scanty supplies nightly
smuggled to them in canoes from the mainland; but the priests still
promised ultimate victory, and were still believed.
At length another concerted attack was planned, by which two armies
should advance from opposite sides of the city, and endeavor to
force their way to a meeting in the great market-place of Tlateloco.
Alderete, the royal treasurer, one of the late arrivals, was
particularly anxious to have the market-place captured and occupied as
a base of operations against the rest of the city. Reluctantly yielding
to his importunities, Cortes ordered the assault to be made. From one
side were to advance the combined forces of Sandoval and Alvarado,
and from the other his own troops were to make their way, in three
divisions, up three parallel streets, all of which led to the tinguez.
One of these divisions was entrusted to Alderete, one to a younger
Alvarado, while Cortes himself commanded the third. With this division
went Huetzin, in command of the Tlascalans.
To each commander the General's last and most implicit instruction
was, to be sure and fill the canal openings as he advanced, so as to
provide a way of retreat. Then, dismounting and advancing on foot,
he led his own division to the assault. The Aztecs fell back after
offering less resistance than usual, and the division carried barricade
after barricade with comparative ease, carefully filling each canal
with rubbish ere they left it. On either side of the street, Huetzin
and his active warriors scaled the house-tops, engaging in hand-to-hand
conflict with the defenders, and ever driving them from their
positions. Nor did the young Toltec neglect the teocallis, several of
which were encountered on the way. In every case these were deserted of
their priests, and Huetzin caused them to be quickly deserted of their
gods as well. From one of these tall observatories he descended with
the information that the other divisions were so far in advance of that
led by Cortes, that they were actually entering the great market-place
while he was still but half way to it.
"Then," exclaimed the commander, "they cannot have stopped to fill the
canals, and I fear me greatly are being decoyed into some trap!"
Halting his own division, he ordered Quinones, the captain of his
guard, to maintain it in that place at all hazards, until hearing from
him. Then, accompanied by Huetzin, Olea, and several other cavaliers,
Cortes hastened through a narrow street connecting with the broad
avenue up which Alderete had passed. The roadway of this was bordered
by canals on either side, so that the Spaniards had been able to bring
a fleet of canoes with them. In these they had been ferried across a
wide gap, connecting the two canals, from which the bridge had been
removed. In the exciting rivalry and ease of their advance, they forgot
the commander's instructions, and neglected to fill this gap. Thus they
pressed exultingly forward, without a thought of disaster or of making
provision for a hurried retreat.
Cortes had hardly reached the avenue before he discovered this yawning
chasm in the roadway, and realized the deadly error committed by
Alderete. He and those with him attempted to remedy it by casting in
rubbish with their own hands. They had scarcely begun, when the distant
roar of conflict grew louder, and in another minute a torrent of
panic-stricken humanity came rolling back, down the avenue to where the
fatal opening awaited its victims.
Alderete had made his way to the market-place with such ease as to
inspire him with a contempt for his adversaries, and fill him with the
idea that he was about to conquer the city at a blow.
Suddenly, from the lofty summit of a neighboring temple sounded, loud
and clear, the thrilling tones of the horn of Guatamotzin. It was a
summons rarely issued, and, as the Spaniards had learned to their cost,
was invariably followed by a struggle to the death. On this occasion
its long-drawn, piercing notes had not died away, when the Aztecs, who
had fled before the advance of Alderete, turned on him with the utmost
fury. At the same moment swarms of ambushed warriors poured out from
every cross street and lane, rending the air with their savage cries,
and springing upon the flanks of his straggling column.
Bewildered and staggered by the force and unexpected nature of the
onset, the Spaniards paused, listened in vain for the accustomed
rallying-cry of their great leader, wavered, and broke into a mad
flight back over the way they had just come. In the frenzied rush
friends and foes, Spaniards, Tlascalans, and Aztecs, were mingled in
inextricable confusion; so that many of the terrified fugitives were
struck down by those beside them, and snatched into waiting canoes by
unseen hands.
Blinded by terror, the fierce human wave rolled on toward the gulf, on
the opposite side of which Cortes and half a dozen companions shuddered
at the impending horror. There was no pause at the awful brink. The
leading files were forced to the leap by those pressing from behind,
and in a moment the most hideous feature of the _noche triste_ was
being re-enacted. In this case there were no horses nor guns to plunge
with wretched humanity into the chasm, nor did darkness multiply the
confusion. Still it was a fearful sight, and Cortes, extending helping
hands to whom he could, groaned aloud to behold his soldiers disappear
by scores beneath the choking waters, or dragged into waiting Aztec
canoes.
As he thus stood in the edge of the water, striving to save some
victims of this terrible disaster, a large canoe containing six
athletic Aztec warriors dashed up to him, and with wild yells of
"Malinche! Malinche!" its occupants made a determined effort to drag
him into their boat. A spear-thrust in the leg partially disabled him,
and though he struggled with the almost superhuman strength supplied
by a vision of the sacrificial altar, his assailants would have
accomplished their purpose had not Olea on one side, and Huetzin on the
other, sprung to his rescue with flashing swords. After killing two of
the Aztecs, Olea fell mortally wounded. Another cavalier named Lerma
was instantly in his vacant place, and for several minutes he and the
Tlascalan Knight, bestriding the prostrate body of their leader, held
the whole swarming mob of assailants in check. The cool bravery and
expert skill of the two were a match for the reckless ferocity of an
untrained score.
Meantime the report carried to the General's own division that he was
slain, spread such dismay through the ranks that, but for the prompt
action of the captain of the guard and a few others, they would have
joined in the senseless flight of Alderete's men. Those who prevented
this, refusing to believe that their leader was dead, rushed to his
rescue, and with a fierce charge pulled him from the very edge of the
water, into which the Aztecs, despite the efforts of Huetzin and
Lerma, had succeeded in dragging him.
The body of brave Olea was borne away in triumph by the enemy, as was
that of a page, pierced through the neck by a javelin, as he came up
with the General's horse. As the lifeless hand of the page dropped from
the bridle this was instantly seized by Guzman, the chamberlain; but
ere Cortes gained his saddle, this faithful attendant was also snatched
away and dragged into an Aztec canoe, vainly screaming for help.
The continued retreat along the canal-bordered roadway was marked by
death and disaster to its very end. The Aztec attack was bold and
incessant, while the press was so great that many an unfortunate was
forced from his footing and slipped into the fatal waters. From these
he was only rescued by Aztec canoes, that would bear him to a fate far
worse than instant death.
The dismay and terror of the fugitives was heightened by the display,
on the uplifted ends of Aztec spears, of two bloody Spanish heads.
This dismal spectacle was accompanied by savage cries of "Sandoval!
Sandoval! Tonatiah! Tonatiah!" intimating that the other army had
also been routed, and its leaders slain. At the same time that army,
barely holding its own against a most determined attack, was horrified
at seeing a bloody Spanish head tossed, with wildest glee, from hand
to hand of their assailants, who greeted it with exulting shouts of
"Malinche! Malinche!" thus striving to convey the idea that the great
leader had fallen.
The disastrous retreat of Alderete and his men was not stayed until
they reached a place where the light battery and a body of cavalry,
sent to their succor, could operate. Even then the Aztecs did not
give way, until, in return for the losses inflicted upon them by the
artillery, they had captured several troopers and killed their horses.
Next to the _noche triste_, this affair was more disastrous to the
whites than any in which they had been engaged since entering that land
of battle and death. Besides their long list of killed and wounded,
sixty-two Spanish and a multitude of Tlascalan prisoners had been
captured by the triumphant Aztecs. These had also killed seven horses,
and gained possession of two pieces of artillery.
As the sun was setting that evening, the penetrating vibration of
the great serpent drum, from the lofty but dismantled temple of the
war-god, attracted all eyes in that direction. A long procession of
priests wound slowly up and around the sides of the vast teocal. As
it reached the summit, the Spaniards recognized with horror, in the
figures of several men stripped to their waists, the white skins of
their compatriots. These, urged on by cruel blows, were compelled
to dance in front of the altar, before submitting to the itzitli
blade of sacrifice. For eighteen successive evenings was this awful
scene repeated, and on the last of them, Guzman, the General's
devoted attendant, met the cruel fate that had already overtaken his
companions, whose number he had seen dwindle, day by day, until he
alone was left.
The Aztec priests caused it to be proclaimed throughout the valley,
that within eight days from the date of their terrible defeat, every
Spaniard would be either dead or a prisoner, for so the gods had
decreed. At the same time they warned all allies of the Spaniards, who
did not wish to share their fate, to desert the Christian cause, and
retire to their own places.
This prophecy had such an effect upon the allies, that by thousands and
ten of thousands they left the camps of the besiegers, until only a
few hundred faithful Tlascalans remained. But when the eight days were
passed, and, in spite of repeated attacks from the city, the white men
still held their ground, their shame-faced allies began to return in
such numbers that the besieging army was soon as strong as before.