So they made ready for war, and Otomie was the president of their
councils, in which I shared. At length came news that a force of fifty
Spaniards with five thousand Tlascalan allies were advancing on the city
to destroy us. Then I took command of the tribesmen of the Otomie--there
were ten thousand or more of them, all well-armed after their own
fashion--and advanced out of the city till I was two-thirds of the way
down the gorge which leads to it. But I did not bring all my army down
this gorge, since there was no room for them to fight there, and I had
another plan. I sent some seven thousand men round the mountains, of
which the secret paths were well known to them, bidding them climb to
the crest of the precipices that bordered either side of the gorge,
and there, at certain places where the cliff is sheer and more than one
thousand feet in height, to make a great provision of stones.
The rest of my army, excepting five hundred whom I kept with me, I
armed with bows and throwing spears, and stationed them in ambush in
convenient places where the sides of the cliff were broken, and in such
fashion that rocks from above could not be rolled on them. Then I sent
trusty men as spies to warn me of the approach of the Spaniards, and
others whose mission it was to offer themselves to them as guides.
Now I thought my plan good, and everything looked well, and yet it
missed failure but by a very little.
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