Chapter XXXIX: Alderete's Fatal Error

The next day another assault was made that penetrated, as before, to the square of the temple. On this occasion the Spaniards, filled with hatred against the ancient palace in which they had suffered so much, set fire to it in a hundred places, and soon had the satisfaction of seeing it in ruins. As on the previous occasion, the retreat to their own camp was so bitterly assailed that few reached it without bearing on their bodies smarting tokens of the fight. These assaults were continued for many days, though with but slight results; for, wherever the besiegers filled canal openings during the day, the Aztecs cleared them out again at night. They also, contrary to their usual custom, made constant night attacks upon the Christian camps, so that the Spaniards were allowed no rest.

At this stage of the siege, Guatamotzin succeeded in capturing and destroying two of the brigantines, by luring them into a trap of stout stakes, driven just below the surface of the water. Thus, with varying fortunes did the days and weeks of the siege pass, until July came, and still the city made no sign of surrender. Famine was beginning to stalk through its streets, and its hardy defenders were sickening of the brackish water with which they eked out the scanty supplies nightly smuggled to them in canoes from the mainland; but the priests still promised ultimate victory, and were still believed.

At length another concerted attack was planned, by which two armies should advance from opposite sides of the city, and endeavor to force their way to a meeting in the great market-place of Tlateloco. Alderete, the royal treasurer, one of the late arrivals, was particularly anxious to have the market-place captured and occupied as a base of operations against the rest of the city. Reluctantly yielding to his importunities, Cortes ordered the assault to be made. From one side were to advance the combined forces of Sandoval and Alvarado, and from the other his own troops were to make their way, in three divisions, up three parallel streets, all of which led to the tinguez. One of these divisions was entrusted to Alderete, one to a younger Alvarado, while Cortes himself commanded the third. With this division went Huetzin, in command of the Tlascalans.

To each commander the General's last and most implicit instruction was, to be sure and fill the canal openings as he advanced, so as to provide a way of retreat. Then, dismounting and advancing on foot, he led his own division to the assault. The Aztecs fell back after offering less resistance than usual, and the division carried barricade after barricade with comparative ease, carefully filling each canal with rubbish ere they left it. On either side of the street, Huetzin and his active warriors scaled the house-tops, engaging in hand-to-hand conflict with the defenders, and ever driving them from their positions. Nor did the young Toltec neglect the teocallis, several of which were encountered on the way. In every case these were deserted of their priests, and Huetzin caused them to be quickly deserted of their gods as well. From one of these tall observatories he descended with the information that the other divisions were so far in advance of that led by Cortes, that they were actually entering the great market-place while he was still but half way to it.

"Then," exclaimed the commander, "they cannot have stopped to fill the canals, and I fear me greatly are being decoyed into some trap!"

Halting his own division, he ordered Quinones, the captain of his guard, to maintain it in that place at all hazards, until hearing from him. Then, accompanied by Huetzin, Olea, and several other cavaliers, Cortes hastened through a narrow street connecting with the broad avenue up which Alderete had passed. The roadway of this was bordered by canals on either side, so that the Spaniards had been able to bring a fleet of canoes with them. In these they had been ferried across a wide gap, connecting the two canals, from which the bridge had been removed. In the exciting rivalry and ease of their advance, they forgot the commander's instructions, and neglected to fill this gap. Thus they pressed exultingly forward, without a thought of disaster or of making provision for a hurried retreat.

Cortes had hardly reached the avenue before he discovered this yawning chasm in the roadway, and realized the deadly error committed by Alderete. He and those with him attempted to remedy it by casting in rubbish with their own hands. They had scarcely begun, when the distant roar of conflict grew louder, and in another minute a torrent of panic-stricken humanity came rolling back, down the avenue to where the fatal opening awaited its victims.

Alderete had made his way to the market-place with such ease as to inspire him with a contempt for his adversaries, and fill him with the idea that he was about to conquer the city at a blow.

Suddenly, from the lofty summit of a neighboring temple sounded, loud and clear, the thrilling tones of the horn of Guatamotzin. It was a summons rarely issued, and, as the Spaniards had learned to their cost, was invariably followed by a struggle to the death. On this occasion its long-drawn, piercing notes had not died away, when the Aztecs, who had fled before the advance of Alderete, turned on him with the utmost fury. At the same moment swarms of ambushed warriors poured out from every cross street and lane, rending the air with their savage cries, and springing upon the flanks of his straggling column.

Bewildered and staggered by the force and unexpected nature of the onset, the Spaniards paused, listened in vain for the accustomed rallying-cry of their great leader, wavered, and broke into a mad flight back over the way they had just come. In the frenzied rush friends and foes, Spaniards, Tlascalans, and Aztecs, were mingled in inextricable confusion; so that many of the terrified fugitives were struck down by those beside them, and snatched into waiting canoes by unseen hands.

Blinded by terror, the fierce human wave rolled on toward the gulf, on the opposite side of which Cortes and half a dozen companions shuddered at the impending horror. There was no pause at the awful brink. The leading files were forced to the leap by those pressing from behind, and in a moment the most hideous feature of the _noche triste_ was being re-enacted. In this case there were no horses nor guns to plunge with wretched humanity into the chasm, nor did darkness multiply the confusion. Still it was a fearful sight, and Cortes, extending helping hands to whom he could, groaned aloud to behold his soldiers disappear by scores beneath the choking waters, or dragged into waiting Aztec canoes.

As he thus stood in the edge of the water, striving to save some victims of this terrible disaster, a large canoe containing six athletic Aztec warriors dashed up to him, and with wild yells of "Malinche! Malinche!" its occupants made a determined effort to drag him into their boat. A spear-thrust in the leg partially disabled him, and though he struggled with the almost superhuman strength supplied by a vision of the sacrificial altar, his assailants would have accomplished their purpose had not Olea on one side, and Huetzin on the other, sprung to his rescue with flashing swords. After killing two of the Aztecs, Olea fell mortally wounded. Another cavalier named Lerma was instantly in his vacant place, and for several minutes he and the Tlascalan Knight, bestriding the prostrate body of their leader, held the whole swarming mob of assailants in check. The cool bravery and expert skill of the two were a match for the reckless ferocity of an untrained score.

Meantime the report carried to the General's own division that he was slain, spread such dismay through the ranks that, but for the prompt action of the captain of the guard and a few others, they would have joined in the senseless flight of Alderete's men. Those who prevented this, refusing to believe that their leader was dead, rushed to his rescue, and with a fierce charge pulled him from the very edge of the water, into which the Aztecs, despite the efforts of Huetzin and Lerma, had succeeded in dragging him.

The body of brave Olea was borne away in triumph by the enemy, as was that of a page, pierced through the neck by a javelin, as he came up with the General's horse. As the lifeless hand of the page dropped from the bridle this was instantly seized by Guzman, the chamberlain; but ere Cortes gained his saddle, this faithful attendant was also snatched away and dragged into an Aztec canoe, vainly screaming for help.

The continued retreat along the canal-bordered roadway was marked by death and disaster to its very end. The Aztec attack was bold and incessant, while the press was so great that many an unfortunate was forced from his footing and slipped into the fatal waters. From these he was only rescued by Aztec canoes, that would bear him to a fate far worse than instant death.

The dismay and terror of the fugitives was heightened by the display, on the uplifted ends of Aztec spears, of two bloody Spanish heads. This dismal spectacle was accompanied by savage cries of "Sandoval! Sandoval! Tonatiah! Tonatiah!" intimating that the other army had also been routed, and its leaders slain. At the same time that army, barely holding its own against a most determined attack, was horrified at seeing a bloody Spanish head tossed, with wildest glee, from hand to hand of their assailants, who greeted it with exulting shouts of "Malinche! Malinche!" thus striving to convey the idea that the great leader had fallen.

The disastrous retreat of Alderete and his men was not stayed until they reached a place where the light battery and a body of cavalry, sent to their succor, could operate. Even then the Aztecs did not give way, until, in return for the losses inflicted upon them by the artillery, they had captured several troopers and killed their horses.

Next to the _noche triste_, this affair was more disastrous to the whites than any in which they had been engaged since entering that land of battle and death. Besides their long list of killed and wounded, sixty-two Spanish and a multitude of Tlascalan prisoners had been captured by the triumphant Aztecs. These had also killed seven horses, and gained possession of two pieces of artillery.

As the sun was setting that evening, the penetrating vibration of the great serpent drum, from the lofty but dismantled temple of the war-god, attracted all eyes in that direction. A long procession of priests wound slowly up and around the sides of the vast teocal. As it reached the summit, the Spaniards recognized with horror, in the figures of several men stripped to their waists, the white skins of their compatriots. These, urged on by cruel blows, were compelled to dance in front of the altar, before submitting to the itzitli blade of sacrifice. For eighteen successive evenings was this awful scene repeated, and on the last of them, Guzman, the General's devoted attendant, met the cruel fate that had already overtaken his companions, whose number he had seen dwindle, day by day, until he alone was left.

The Aztec priests caused it to be proclaimed throughout the valley, that within eight days from the date of their terrible defeat, every Spaniard would be either dead or a prisoner, for so the gods had decreed. At the same time they warned all allies of the Spaniards, who did not wish to share their fate, to desert the Christian cause, and retire to their own places.

This prophecy had such an effect upon the allies, that by thousands and ten of thousands they left the camps of the besiegers, until only a few hundred faithful Tlascalans remained. But when the eight days were passed, and, in spite of repeated attacks from the city, the white men still held their ground, their shame-faced allies began to return in such numbers that the besieging army was soon as strong as before.