Still this marksmanship,
poor as it was, gained me great renown among the Aztecs, who were but
feeble archers, for they had never before seen an arrow pierce through
the Spanish mail. Nor would mine have done so had I not collected the
iron barbs off the crossbow bolts of the Spaniards, and fitted them to
my own shafts. I seldom found the mail that would withstand arrows made
thus, when the range was short and the aim good.
After the first day's fight I was appointed general over a body of three
thousand archers, and was given a banner to be borne before me and a
gorgeous captain's dress to wear. But what pleased me better was a chain
shirt which came from the body of a Spanish cavalier. For many years I
always wore this shirt beneath my cotton mail, and it saved my life more
than once, for even bullets would not pierce the two of them.
I had taken over the command of my archers but forty-eight hours, a
scant time in which to teach them discipline whereof they had little,
though they were brave enough, when the occasion came to use them in
good earnest, and with it the night of disaster that is still known
among the Spaniards as the noche triste. On the afternoon before that
night a council was held in the palace at which I spoke, saying, I was
certain that the Teules thought of retreat from the city, and in the
dark, for otherwise they would not have been so eager to fill up the
canals in the causeway.
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