Now I go to
summon our armies.' And he went.
All that night the city murmured like a swarm of wasps, and next day at
dawn, so far as the eye could reach, the streets and market place were
filled with tens of thousands of armed warriors. They threw themselves
like a wave upon the walls of the palace of Axa, and like a wave from
a rock they were driven back again by the fire of the guns. Thrice they
attacked, and thrice they were repulsed. Then Montezuma, the woman king,
appeared upon the walls, praying them to desist because, forsooth, did
they succeed, he himself might perish. Even then they obeyed him,
so great was their reverence for his sacred royalty, and for a while
attacked the Spaniards no more. But further than this they would not
go. If Montezuma forbade them to kill the Spaniards, at least they
determined to starve them out, and from that hour a strait blockade
was kept up against the palace. Hundreds of the Aztec soldiers had been
slain already, but the loss was not all upon their side, for some of the
Spaniards and many of the Tlascalans had fallen into their hands. As
for these unlucky prisoners, their end was swift, for they were taken at
once to the temples of the great teocalli, and sacrificed there to the
gods in the sight of their comrades.
Now it was that Cortes returned with many more men, for he had conquered
Narvaez, whose followers joined the standard of Cortes, and with them
others, one of whom I had good reason to know.
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