tion of the oracle fell heavy on their hearts. They had little doubt of its fulfilment, and were only eager to turn away the bolt from their own heads by a timely secession from the cause.

They took advantage, therefore, of the friendly cover of night to steal away from their quarters. Company after company deserted in this manner, taking the direction of their respective homes. Those belonging to the great towns of the Valley, whose allegiance was the most recent, were the first to cast it off. Their example was followed by the older confederates, the militia of Cholula, Tepeaca, Tezcuco, and even the faithful Tlascala. There were, it is true, some exceptions to these, and among them, Ixtlilxochitl, the younger lord of Tezcuco, and Chichemecatl, the valiant Tlascalan chieftain, who, with a few of their immediate followers, still remained true to the banner under which they had enlisted. But their number was insignificant. The Spaniards beheld with dismay the mighty array, on which they relied for support, thus silently melting away before the breath of superstition. Cortés alone maintained a cheerful countenance. He treated the prediction with contempt, as an invention of the priests, and sent his messengers after the retreating squadrons, beseeching them to postpone their departure, or at least to halt on the road, till the time, which would soon elapse, should show the falsehood of the prophecy.

The affairs of the Spaniards, at this crisis, must be confessed to have worn a gloomy aspect. Deserted by their allies, with their ammunition nearly exhausted, cut off from the customary supplies from the neighbourhood, harassed by unintermitting vigils and fatigues, smarting under wounds, of which every man in the army had his share, with an unfriendly country in their rear, and a mortal foe in front, they might well be excused for faltering in their enterprise.

VOL. III.

K

They found abundant occupation by day in foraging the country, and in maintaining their position on the causeways against the enemy, now made doubly daring by success and by the promises of their priests; while at night their slumbers were disturbed by the beat of the melancholy drum, the sounds of which, booming far over the waters, tolled the the knell of their murdered comrades. Night after night fresh victims were led up to the great altar of sacrifice; and while the city blazed with the illuminations of a thousand bonfires on the terraced roofs of the dwellings, and in the areas of the temples, the dismal pageant, showing through the fiery glare like the work of the ministers of hell, was distinctly visible from the camp below. One of the last of the sufferers was Guzman, the unfortunate chamberlain of Cortés, who lingered in captivity eighteen days before he met his doom.*

Yet in this hour of trial the Spaniards did not falter. Had they faltered, they might have learned a lesson of fortitude from some of their own wives, who continued with them in the camp, and who displayed a heroism, on this occasion, of which history has preserved several examples. One of these, protected by her husband's armour, would frequently mount guard in his place, when he was wearied.

* Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva Esp., MS., lib. 12, cap. 36.-Ixtlilxochitl, Venida de los Esp., pp. 41, 42. The Castilian scholar will see that I have not drawn on my imagination for the picture of these horrors. "Digamos aora lo que los Mexicanos hazian de noche en sus grandes, y altos Cues; y es, q' tañian su maldito atambor, que dixe otra vez que era el de mas maldito sonido, y mas triste q' se podia inuetar, y sonaua muy lexos; y tāñian otros peores instrumentos. En fin, cosas diabólicas, y tenia grandes lumbres, y dauā grādíssimos gritos, y siluos, y en aquel instate estauan sacrificando de nuestros cōpañeros, de los q' tomárō á Cortés, que supímos q' sacrificáron diez días arreo, hasta que los acabáron, y el postrero dexárō á Christoual de Guzman, q' viuo lo tuuiéron diez y ocho dias, segun dixérō tres Capitanes Mexicanos q' predímos.”—Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 153.

Another, hastily putting on a soldier's escaupil and seizing a sword and lance, was seen, on one occasion, to rally her retreating countrymen, and lead them back against the enemy. Cortés would have persuaded these Amazonian dames to remain at Tlascala; but they proudly replied,

66

It was the duty of Castilian wives not to abandon their husbands in danger, but to share it with them, and die with them, if necessary." And well did they do their duty.*

Amidst all the distresses and multiplied embarrassments of their situation, the Spaniards still remained true to their purpose. They relaxed in no degree the severity of the blockade. Their camps still occupied the only avenues to the city; and their batteries, sweeping the long defiles at every fresh assault of the Aztecs, mowed down hundreds of the assailants. Their brigantines still rode on the waters, cutting off the communication with the shore. It is true, indeed, the loss of the auxiliary canoes left a passage open for the occasional introduction of supplies to the capital.† But the whole amount of these supplies was small; and its crowded population, while exulting in their temporary advantage, and the delusive assurances of their priests, were beginning to sink under the withering grasp of an enemy within, more terrible than the one which lay before their gates.

* "Que no era bien, que Mugeres Castellanas dexasen á sus Maridos, iendo á la Guerra, i que adonde ellos muriesen, moririan ellas." (Herrera, Hist. General, dec. 3, lib. 1, cap. 22.) The historian has embalmed the names of several of these heroines in his pages, who are, doubtless, well entitled to share the honours of the Conquest; Beatriz de Palacios, María de Estrada, Juana Martin, Isabel Rodriguez, and Beatriz Bermudez.

+Ibid., ubi supra.

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CHAPTER VII.

SUCCESS OF THE SPANIARDS.-FRUITLESS OFFERS TO GUATEMOZIN.BUILDINGS RAZED ΤΟ THE GROUND.-TERRIBLE FAMINE.-THE TROOPS GAIN THE MARKET-PLACE.-BATTERING ENGINE.

1521.

THUS passed away the eight days prescribed by the oracle ; and the sun, which rose upon the ninth, beheld the fair city still beset on every side by the inexorable foe. It was a great mistake of the Aztec priests,-one not uncommon with false prophets, anxious to produce a startling impression on their followers,-to assign so short a term for the fulfilment of their prediction.*

The Tezcucan and Tlascalan chiefs now sent to acquaint their troops with the failure of the prophecy, and to recall them to the Christian camp. The Tlascalans, who had halted on the way, returned, ashamed of their credulity, and with ancient feelings of animosity, heightened by the artifice of which they had been the dupes. Their example was followed by many of the other confederates, with the levity natural to a people whose convictions are the result, not of reason, but of superstition. In a short time the Spanish general found himself at the head of an auxiliary force, which, if not so numerous as before, was more than adequate to all his purposes. He received them with politic benignity; and, while he reminded them that they had been guilty of a great crime in thus abandoning their commander,

* And yet the priests were not so much to blame, if, as Solís assures us, "the devil went about very industriously in those days, insinuating into the ears of his flock, what he could not into their hearts."-Conquista, lib. 5, cap. 22.

SUCCESSES OF THE SPANIARDS.

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he was willing to overlook it in consideration of their past services. They must be aware that these services were not necessary to the Spaniards, who had carried on the siege with the same vigour during their absence as when they were present. But he was unwilling that those who had shared the dangers of the war with him, should not also partake of its triumphs, and be present at the fall of their enemy, which he promised, with a confidence better founded than that of the priests in their prediction, should not be long delayed.

Yet the menaces and machinations of Guatemozin were still not without effect in the distant provinces. Before the full return of the confederates, Cortés received an embassy from Cuernavaca, ten or twelve leagues distant, and another from some friendly towns of the Otomies, still further off, imploring his protection against their formidable neighbours, who menaced them with hostilities as allies of the Spaniards. As the latter were then situated, they were in a condition to receive succour much more than to give it.* Most of the officers were accordingly opposed to granting a request, the compliance with which must still further impair their diminished strength. But Cortés knew the importance, above all, of not betraying his own inability to grant it. "The greater our weakness," he said, "the greater need have we to cover it under a show of strength."+

He immediately detached Tapia with a body of about a hundred men in one direction, and Sandoval with a somevhat larger force in the other, with orders that their absence

"Y teniamos necesidad antes de ser socorridos, que de dar socorro." -Rel. Terc. de Cortés, ap. Lorenzana, p. 272.

"God knows," says the general, "the peril in which we all stood; ero como nos convenia mostrar mas esfuerzo y ánimo, que nunca, y morir eleando, disimulabamos nuestra flaqueza assí con los Amigos como con los