THE ROMANCE OF MEXICO
missiles. Reaching the summit, they grappled fiercely with the garrison, many of whom were flung down the precipice to be dashed to death in the stream below, where the water soon ran red with blood. For a full hour, declares one chronicler, the victors could not drink from the polluted stream, but old Bernal Diaz says, "For as long as one might take to say an Ave Maria!"
Good news from the coast came to Cortés that three Spanish ships with two hundred men and seventy or eighty horses had arrived at Villa Rica. The new-comers lost no time in making their way to Tezcuco. One of the cavaliers, named Julian de Alderete, was a man of some distinction, and had been sent to Mexico as royal treasurer to look after the interests of the Crown. With the soldiers came a friar who brought, says Diaz, "a number of bulls of our lord St. Peter, in order to compose our consciences if we had anything to lay to our charge on account of the wars. The reverend father made a fortune in a few months and returned to Castile."
The brigantines were not even yet completed, and Cortés set out once more with a strong force, resolved to subdue the Aztec fortresses in the mountainous country to the south of Lake Chalco. These citadels were perched on high and almost inaccessible cliffs, which hung threateningly over the wild gorges through which the army must pass. After many desperate climbs and much hard fighting, Cortés succeeded in carrying several of these fortresses, but on the ninth day he came suddenly on
