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wise would they surrender and that only one man being left he would die fighting, and that of all they possessed we could never obtain anything for they would burn it and throw it into the water whence it would never more appear. Not wishing to return evil for evil, I dissembled, and refrained from fighting.
As very little powder was left to us, we had in the last fifteen days discussed somewhat about making a catapult;[1] and, though there was no first-class
The
Catapult
master-workman who knew how to do it, some carpenters offered to make a small one. Although I always believed that we would not succeed in this work, I consented that they should make it, and, in those days when we had the Indians cor-
- ↑ A soldier called Sotelo, native of Seville, who claimed to have seen much service in Italy, and to know all about the construction of engines of warfare, proposed to Cortes to make this catapult. As Bernal Diaz says, he was eternally talking about the wonderful military machines he could build, with which he promised to destroy in two days the remaining quarter of the city, where Quauhtemotzin held out. The commander consented to the trial, and stone, lime, timber, cables, and all the necessary materials, were furnished, together with carpenters, and masons, to carry out Sotelo's instructions. The machine was erected on the platform of masonry known as the Mumuztli, a sort of theatre which stood in the square, and the process of its construction was watched with exultant expectations by the Indian allies, who foresaw the wholesale destruction of their enemies by means of the mysterious machine. They indulged in jubilant prophecies, and called on the Mexicans to observe the growth of the engine destined to accomplish their overthrow. The Mexicans were equally impressed by the strange monster, and watched its building with the feelings of one in the condemned cell, who hears the workmen building the scaffold on which he is to perish at dawn. The day of the trial (August 6th) arrived, and a huge stone was fired which instead of flying over into the Indian quarter where it was aimed, shot up into the air, and fell back into exactly the place from whence it departed. Cortes was furious with Sotelo, and ashamed of the failure in the presence of the gazing multitude: the luckless inventor was in disgrace, and the catapult remained one of the standing jokes in the army. Infusing some gaiety into the company this invention may be said to have served some good purpose, even though not exactly the one expected of it.
