FIGHT ON THE GREAT TEMPLE OR TEOCALLI. 



47 



his left hand, in the previous fight, but he bound his buckler to the 

 crippled limb, and, at the head of three hundred chosen men, accom- 

 panied by Alvarado, Sandoval, Ordaz and others of his most gallant 

 cavaliers, he sallied from the besieged palace. It was soon found 

 that horses were useless in charging the Indians over the smooth and 

 slippery pavements of the town and square, and accordingly Cortez 

 sent them back to his quarters ; yet he managed to repulse the squad- 

 rons in the court -yard of the Teocalli, and to hold them in check 

 by a file of arquebusiers. The singular architecture of this Mound- 

 Temple will be recollected by the reader, and the difficulty of its 

 ascent, by means of five stairways and four terraces, was now in- 

 creased by the crowds that thronged these narrow avenues. From 

 stair to stair, from gallery to gallery, the Spaniards fought onward 

 and upward with resistless courage, incessantly flinging their Indian 

 foes, by main strength, over the narrow ledges. At length they 

 reached the level platform of the top, which was capable of contain- 

 ing a thousand warriors. Here, at the shrine of the Aztec war- 

 god, was a site for the noblest contest in the empire. The area 

 was paved with broad and level stones. Free from all impedi- 

 ments, it was unguarded at its edges by battlements, parapets, or, 

 any defences which could protect the assailants from falling if they 

 approached the sides too closely. Quarter was out of the question. 

 The battle was hand to hand, and body to body. Combatants 

 grappled and wrestled in deadly efforts to cast each other from the 

 steep and sheer ledges. Indian priests ran to and fro with stream- 

 ing hair and sable garments, urging their superstitious children to 

 the contest. Men tumbled headlong over the sides of the area, 

 and even Cortez himself, by superior agility, alone, was saved from 

 the grasp of two warriors who dragged him to the brink of the 

 lofty pyramid and were about to dash him to the earth. 



For three hours the battle raged until every Indian combatant 

 was either slain on the summit or hurled to the base. Forty-five 

 of the Spaniards were killed, and nearly all wounded. A few 

 Aztec priests, alone, of all the Indian band, survived to behold the 

 destruction of the sanctuaries, which had so often been desecrated 

 - by the hideous rites and offerings of their bloody religion. 



For a moment the natives were panic-struck by this masterly 

 and victorious manoeuvre, whilst the Spaniards passed unmolested 

 to their quarters, from which, at night, they again sallied to burn 

 three hundred houses of the citizens. 



Cortez thought that these successes would naturally dismay the 

 Mexicans, and proposed, through Mariana, — his faithful interpre- 



