Indeed he
did more, for when all the able-bodied men, together with such children
as were sufficiently strong to bear the fatigues of travel, had been
sorted out to be sold as slaves, he suffered the rest of that melancholy
company to depart whither they would. And so they went, though what
became of them I do not know.
That night we spent in the courtyard of the teocalli, but before it was
light I caused the women and children who remained with us, perhaps some
six hundred in all, for very few of the former who were unmarried, or
who being married were still young and comely, had chosen to desert our
refuge, to ascend the pyramid, guessing that the Spaniards would attack
us at dawn. I stayed, however, with the three hundred fighting men that
were left to me, a hundred or more having thrown themselves upon the
mercy of the Spaniards, with the refugees, to await the Spanish onset
under shelter of the walls of the courtyard. At dawn it began, and by
midday, do what we could to stay it, the wall was stormed, and leaving
nearly a hundred dead and wounded behind me, I was driven to the winding
way that led to the summit of the pyramid. Here they assaulted us again,
but the road was steep and narrow, and their numbers gave them no great
advantage on it, so that the end of it was that we beat them back with
loss, and there was no more fighting that day.
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