The night which followed we spent upon the summit of the pyramid, and
for my part I was so weary that after I had eaten I never slept more
soundly. Next morning the struggle began anew; and this time with better
success to the Spaniards. Inch by inch under cover of the heavy fire
from their arquebusses and pieces, they forced us upward and backward.
All day long the fight continued upon the narrow road that wound from
stage to stage of the pyramid. At length, as the sun sank, a company of
our foes, their advance guard, with shouts of victory, emerged upon the
flat summit, and rushed towards the temple in its centre. All this while
the women had been watching, but now one of them sprang up, crying with
a loud voice:
'Seize them; they are but few.'
Then with a fearful scream of rage, the mob of women cast themselves
upon the weary Spaniards and Tlascalans, bearing them down by the weight
of their numbers. Many of them were slain indeed, but in the end the
women conquered, ay, and made their victims captive, fastening them
with cords to the rings of copper that were let into the stones of the
pavement, to which in former days those doomed to sacrifice had been
secured, when their numbers were so great that the priests feared
lest they should escape. I and the soldiers with me watched this sight
wondering, then I cried out:
'What! men of the Otomie, shall it be said that our women outdid us in
courage?' and without further ado, followed by a hundred or more of my
companions, I rushed desperately down the steep and narrow path.
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