THE SIEGE BEGINS
Catalan also healed them by charms and prayers, which, with the mercy of our Lord Jesus, recovered us very fast." Sitting in mud and water they ate their "miserable food of maize and herbs withal! but, as our officers said, such is the fortune of war!"
It was the rainy season, and even the general's own division in the Camp of the Causeway suffered much from the cold and wet. To relieve their misery Cortés set the allies to work on erecting barracks of stone and wood. So wide was the causeway near the Fort of Xoloc that these shelters were constructed to hold two thousand men.
Message after message did Cortés send to Guatemozin offering fair terms of peace, but though food grew scarcer and scarcer in the city the young emperor scorned even to reply to the "perfidious strangers." Too well did the Aztecs remember the treachery of Tonatiuh to put faith in the promise of a Spaniard!
All that a general could do unaided by warships, cannon, cavalry, and steel weapons, Guatemozin did. Reorganising the old way of Aztec warfare, he made surprise attacks after dark, and kept a strict guard during the night, his warriors relieving each other in Spanish fashion. Simultaneous assaults were made on the three divisions of the besieging army. Open battle with the brigantines had proved useless, so among the tall rushes near the southern shores of the lake an ambush was laid. Stakes were driven into the shallow waters, and then several canoes rowed past the proud warships, tempting pursuit. Two of the smaller brigantines immediately gave chase and were
