Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 2.djvu/100

80 Letters of Cortes infinite number, and, advancing along the causeway, we found the enemy already waiting for us, three bow shots
Second
General
Assault on
the City
from the camp, yelling fearfully. During the three preceding days there had been no fighting with them so they had undone all we had accomplished in filling up the breaches in the causeway, making them very much stronger and more dangerous to capture than before. The brigantines accompanied us on both sides of the causeway, for they could approach very near, and do much damage with field pieces, muskets, and crossbows. Discovering this, our men landed and captured the breast-works and bridge; we crossed to the other side and pursued the enemy, who immediately fortified themselves in the other breast-works and bridges they had prepared, which, although with greater trouble and danger than before, we also captured, expelling them from the street and square where the great houses of the city stand. I ordered that no Spaniard should leave there while I and our allies were filling the breaks in the causeway with stones and adobes, which was such a labour, that although ten thousand Indians helped us, it was already the hour of vespers when we had finished making repairs; during all which time the Spaniards and our allies were constantly fighting and skirmishing and preparing ambushes, in which many of the enemy perished. I rode with the horsemen through the city for a while, and in the streets where there is no water, we killed with our lances all whom we could catch, thus holding them at a distance, nor did they dare to come on dry ground. Seeing that they were so rebellious and showed such determination to defend themselves to the death, I inferred two things: first that we should recover little or none of the treasures they had taken from us, and the other, that they gave occasion and forced us to totally destroy them. This last reason caused me the greater grief, for it weighed