This area was paved with blocks of marble, and in its centre stood the temple of the war-god, where his statue still sat, although no worship had been offered to him for many years; the stone of sacrifice, the altar of fire, and the storehouses of the priests.
Moreover in front of the temple, and between it and the stone of sacrifice, was a deep cemented hole the size of a large room, which once had been used as a place for the safe keeping of grain in times of famine.
This pit I had caused to be filled with water borne with great toil to the top of the pyramid, and in the temple itself I stored a great quantity of food, so that we had no cause to fear present death from thirst or famine.
But now we were face to face with a new trouble.
Large as was the summit of the pyramid, it would not give shelter to a half of our numbers, and if we desired to defend it some of the multitude herded round its base must seek refuge elsewhere.
Calling the leaders of the people together, I put the matter before them in few words, leaving them to decide what must be done.
They in turn consulted among themselves, and at length gave me this answer: that it was agreed that all the wounded and aged there, together with most of the children, and with them any others who wished to go, should leave the teocalli that night, to find their way out of the city if they could, or if not, to trust to the mercy of the Spaniards.
I said that it was well, for death was on every side, and it mattered little which way men turned to meet it.
So they were sorted out, fifteen hundred or more of them, and at midnight the gates of the courtyard were thrown open, and they left.
Oh! it was dreadful to see the farewells that took place in that hour.
Here a daughter clung to the neck of her aged father, here husbands and wives bade each other a last farewell, here mothers kissed their little children, and on every side rose up the sounds of bitter agony, the agony of those who parted for ever.
I buried my face in my hands, wondering as I had often wondered before, how a God whose name is Mercy can bear to look upon sights that break the hearts of sinful men to witness.
Presently I raised my eyes and spoke to Otomie, who was at my side, asking her if she would not send our son away with the others, passing him off as the child of common people.
‘Nay, husband,’ she answered, ‘it is better for him to die with us, than to live as a slave of the Spaniards.’
At length it was over and the gates had shut behind the last of them.
Soon we heard the distant challenge of the Spanish sentries as they perceived them, and the sounds of some shots followed by cries.
‘Doubtless the Tlascalans are massacring them,’ I said.
But it was not so.
When a few had been killed the leaders of the Spaniards found that they waged war upon an unarmed mob, made up for the most part of aged people, women and children, and their commander, Bernal Diaz, a merciful man if a rough one, ordered that the onslaught should cease.
Indeed he did more, for when all the able-bodied men, together with such children as were sufficiently strong to bear the fatigues of travel, had been sorted out to be sold as slaves, he suffered the rest of that melancholy company to depart whither they would.
And so they went, though what became of them I do not know.
That night we spent in the courtyard of the teocalli, but before it was light I caused the women and children who remained with us, perhaps some six hundred in all, for very few of the former who were unmarried, or who being married were still young and comely, had chosen to desert our refuge, to ascend the pyramid, guessing that the Spaniards would attack us at dawn.
I stayed, however, with the three hundred fighting men that were left to me, a hundred or more having thrown themselves upon the mercy of the Spaniards, with the refugees, to await the Spanish onset under shelter of the walls of the courtyard.
At dawn it began, and by midday, do what we could to stay it, the wall was stormed, and leaving nearly a hundred dead and wounded behind me, I was driven to the winding way that led to the summit of the pyramid.
Here they assaulted us again, but the road was steep and narrow, and their numbers gave them no great advantage on it, so that the end of it was that we beat them back with loss, and there was no more fighting that day.
The night which followed we spent upon the summit of the pyramid, and for my part I was so weary that after I had eaten I never slept more soundly.
Next morning the struggle began anew; and this time with better success to the Spaniards.
Inch by inch under cover of the heavy fire from their arquebusses and pieces, they forced us upward and backward. All day long the fight continued upon the narrow road that wound from stage to stage of the pyramid.
At length, as the sun sank, a company of our foes, their advance guard, with shouts of victory, emerged upon the flat summit, and rushed towards the temple in its centre.
All this while the women had been watching, but now one of them sprang up, crying with a loud voice:
‘Seize them; they are but few.’
Then with a fearful scream of rage, the mob of women cast themselves upon the weary Spaniards and Tlascalans, bearing them down by the weight of their numbers.
Many of them were slain indeed, but in the end the women conquered, ay, and made their victims captive, fastening them with cords to the rings of copper that were let into the stones of the pavement, to which in former days those doomed to sacrifice had been secured, when their numbers were so great that the priests feared lest they should escape.
I and the soldiers with me watched this sight wondering, then I cried out:
‘What! men of the Otomie, shall it be said that our women outdid us in courage?’ and without further ado, followed by a hundred or more of my companions, I rushed desperately down the steep and narrow path.
At the first corner we met the main array of Spaniards and their allies, coming up slowly, for now they were sure of victory, and so great was the shock of our encounter that many of them were hurled over the edge of the path, to roll down the steep sides of the pyramid.
Seeing the fate of their comrades, those behind them halted, then began to retreat.
Presently the weight of our rush struck them also, and they in turn pushed upon those below, till at length panic seized them, and with a great crying the long line of men that wound round and round the pyramid from its base almost to its summit, sought their safety in flight.
But some of them found none, for the rush of those above pressing with ever increasing force upon their friends below, drove many to their death, since here on the pyramid there was nothing to cling to, and if once a man lost his foothold on the path, his fall was broken only when his body reached the court beneath.
Thus in fifteen short minutes all that the Spaniards had won this day was lost again, for except the prisoners at its summit, none of them remained alive upon the teocalli; indeed so great a terror took them, that bearing with them their dead and wounded, they retreated under cover of the night to their camp without the walls of the courtyard.
Now, weary but triumphant, we wended back towards the crest of the pyramid, but as I turned the corner of the second angle that was perhaps nearly one hundred feet above the level of the ground, a thought struck me and I set those with me at a task.
Loosening the blocks of stone that formed the edge of the roadway, we rolled them down the sides of the pyramid, and so laboured on removing layer upon layer of stones and of the earth beneath, till where the path had been, was nothing but a yawning gap thirty feet or more in width.
‘Now,’ I said, surveying our handiwork by the light of the rising moon, ‘that Spaniard who would win our nest must find wings to fly with.’
‘Ay, Teule,’ answered one at my side, ‘but say what wings shall WE find?’
‘The wings of Death,’ I said grimly, and went on my upward way.
It was near midnight when I reached the temple, for the labour of levelling the road took many hours and food had been sent to us from above.
As I drew nigh I was amazed to hear the sound of solemn chanting, and still more was I amazed when I saw that the doors of the temple of Huitzel were open, and that the sacred fire which had not shone there for many years once more flared fiercely upon his altar.
I stood still listening.
Did my ears trick me, or did I hear the dreadful song of sacrifice?
Nay, again its wild refrain rang out upon the silence: