To this Cuitlahua, who now that Montezuma was dead would be emperor, though he was not yet chosen and crowned, answered that it might well be that the Teules meditated flight, but that they could never attempt it in the darkness, since in so doing they must become entangled in the streets and dykes.
I replied that though it was not the Aztec habit to march and fight at night, such things were common enough among white men as they had seen already, and that because the Spaniards knew it was not their habit, they would be the more likely to attempt escape under cover of the darkness, when they thought their enemies asleep.
Therefore I counselled that sentries should be set at all the entrances to every causeway.
To this Cuitlahua assented, and assigned the causeway of Tlacopan to Guatemoc and myself, making us the guardians of its safety.
That night Guatemoc and I, with some soldiers, went out towards midnight to visit the guard that we had placed upon the causeway.
It was very dark and a fine rain fell, so that a man could see no further before his eyes than he can at evening through a Norfolk roke in autumn.
We found and relieved the guard, which reported that all was quiet, and we were returning towards the great square when of a sudden I heard a dull sound as of thousands of men tramping.
‘Listen,’ I said.
‘It is the Teules who escape,’ whispered Guatemoc.
Quickly we ran to where the street from the great square opens on to the causeway, and there even through the darkness and rain we caught the gleam of armour.
Then I cried aloud in a great voice, ‘To arms!
To arms!
The Teules escape by the causeway of Tlacopan.’
Instantly my words were caught up by the sentries and passed from post to post till the city rang with them.
They were cried in every street and canal, they echoed from the roofs of houses, and among the summits of a hundred temples.
The city awoke with a murmur, from the lake came the sound of water beaten by ten thousand oars, as though myriads of wild-fowl had sprung suddenly from their reedy beds.
Here, there, and everywhere torches flashed out like falling stars, wild notes were blown on horns and shells, and above all arose the booming of the snakeskin drum which the priests upon the teocalli beat furiously.
Presently the murmur grew to a roar, and from this direction and from that, armed men poured towards the causeway of Tlacopan.
Some came on foot, but the most of them were in canoes which covered the waters of the lake further than the ear could hear.
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.
The head of the Spanish column reached the canal and the fight began, which so far as the Aztecs were concerned was a fray without plan or order, for in that darkness and confusion the captains could not see their men or the men hear their captains.
But they were there in countless numbers and had only one desire in their breasts, to kill the Teules.
A cannon roared, sending a storm of bullets through us, and by its flash we saw that the Spaniards carried a timber bridge with them, which they were placing across the canal.
Then we fell on them, every man fighting for himself.
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.
How can I tell all that came to pass that night?
I cannot, for I saw but little of it.
All I know is that for two hours I was fighting like a madman.
The foe crossed the first canal, but when all were over the bridge was sunk so deep in the mud that it could not be stirred, and three furlongs on ran a second canal deeper and wider than the first.
Over this they could not cross till it was bridged with the dead.
It seemed as though all hell had broken loose upon that narrow ridge of ground.
The sound of cannons and of arquebusses, the shrieks of agony and fear, the shouts of the Spanish soldiers, the war-cries of the Aztecs, the screams of wounded horses, the wail of women, the hiss of hurtling darts and arrows, and the dull noise of falling blows went up to heaven in one hideous hurly-burly.
Like a frightened mob of cattle the long Spanish array swayed this way and that, bellowing as it swayed.
Many rolled down the sides of the causeway to be slaughtered in the water of the lake, or borne away to sacrifice in the canoes, many were drowned in the canals, and yet more were trampled to death in the mud.
Hundreds of the Aztecs perished also, for the most part beneath the weapons of their own friends, who struck and shot not knowing on whom the blow should fall or in whose breast the arrow would find its home.
For my part I fought on with a little band of men who had gathered about me, till at last the dawn broke and showed an awful sight.
The most of those who were left alive of the Spaniards and their allies had crossed the second canal upon a bridge made of the dead bodies of their fellows mixed up with a wreck of baggage, cannon, and packages of treasure.
Now the fight was raging beyond it.
A mob of Spaniards and Tlascalans were still crossing the second breach, and on these I fell with such men as were with me.
I plunged right into the heart of them, and suddenly before me I saw the face of de Garcia.
With a shout I rushed at him. He heard my voice and knew me.
With an oath he struck at my head. The heavy sword came down upon my helmet of painted wood, shearing away one side of it and felling me, but ere I fell I smote him on the breast with the club I carried, tumbling him to the earth.
Now half stunned and blinded I crept towards him through the press.
All that I could see was a gleam of armour in the mud.
I threw myself upon it, gripping at the wearer’s throat, and together we rolled down the side of the causeway into the shallow water at the edge of the lake.
I was uppermost, and with a fierce joy I dashed the blood from my eyes that I might see to kill my enemy caught at last.
His body was in the lake but his head lay upon the sloping bank, and my plan was to hold him beneath the water till he was drowned, for I had lost my club.
‘At length, de Garcia!’ I cried in Spanish as I shifted my grip.