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ortes had, what it was to fight against Indians.

CHAPTER CXXVIII.

 _How we come to the determination of leaving Mexico secretly at
 night; and what further happened._

In this way our strength daily diminished, while that of the enemy
increased. Several of our men had been killed, and most of us were
wounded. Our courage was of no avail against such vast crowds, who kept
up a constant attack upon us both during day and night time. Our powder
was fast diminishing,[87] and provisions and water were beginning to
fail. Motecusuma was gone, and the peace we solicited was refused. All
the bridges on the causeways, along which we had to make good our
retreat, had been destroyed by the enemy; in short death was staring at
us on every hand. It was, therefore, at last determined, in a council of
war, that we should leave the city, and choose the night-time to effect
our purpose, when the enemy was generally less vigilant. To make more
sure, we resolved to despatch one of the chief papas we had taken with
many other prisoners, to the Mexicans on the evening preceding the night
we contemplated making our retreat, to request of them to allow us to
march quietly out of the city within the space of eight days, as we
intended to leave them all the gold we possessed.

On this our determination one of the soldiers named Botello had had
great influence. This man was an Italian by birth, and was remarkable
for his honesty and great intelligence. He had been at Rome, and many
believed he could conjure up the dead; some said he had a _spiritus
familiaris_, and many of us commonly called him the astrologer.

Botello had, four days previously, announced, that, by means of his
secret art, he had discovered that every one of us would be killed if we
did not leave Mexico on a certain night. He had likewise prophesied of
Cortes that great misfortunes awaited him; he would lose his property
and honour, but again rise to eminence and riches. Similar horoscopes
drawn by him were frequently mentioned by our men.

As we shall again have to mention this Botello, we must now see what
preparations were going on for our retreat; the first and most important
of which was, the construction of a moveable bridge, out of strong
beams, which was to serve in passing the canals where the former bridges
had been burnt down by the enemy. Four hundred Tlascallans, assisted by
150 of our men, were to take charge of this bridge; were to fix it in
the proper place each time it was required, then remove it again, and so
on, until the whole of us with our baggage and cannon had passed the
several openings. The transport of our heavy guns was intrusted to 250
Tlascallans and fifty of our men. Sandoval, Lugo, Ordas, and Tapia,
formed the vanguard; these were to clear the streets of the enemy, and
for that purpose were reinforced by eight or ten of Narvaez's officers,
whose names I will not mention, and 100 of our strongest and most nimble
young soldiers. Cortes himself was to take his station, supported by
Oli, Avila, Bernardino de Tapia, besides other officers and fifty
soldiers, between the baggage, our Indian female servants and the
prisoners, in order to render assistance wherever it was most required.
The rear-guard was to be commanded by Leon and Alvarado, consisting of
the main body of the cavalry, 100 foot, and the greater part of
Narvaez's troops. Doña Marina and Doña Luisa, with the prisoners, were
to be guarded by 300 Tlascallans and thirty Spaniards.

After these arrangements had been made, and night was fast approaching,
Cortes ordered his chamberlain Christobal de Guzman to see that all the
gold, silver, and other valuable matters were brought together in one
apartment. The royal treasurers, Alonso Avila and Gonzalo Mexia, were
then desired to deduct the emperor's portion, and load eight of our
wounded horses and eighty Tlascallans with it. The greater part of the
treasure consisted of broad bars of gold, with which the horses and men
were as heavily laden as possible.

Cortes then called his private secretary Pedro Hernandez, and the other
royal secretaries, and spoke to them as follows: "Put down in writing
and bear witness that I have done all which lay in my power to save this
treasure, which is valued at 700,000 pesos. You see it is impossible to
load any more of it on the Indian porters and the eight horses; I will,
therefore, allow the soldiers to take as much away with them as they can
conveniently carry, that this treasure may not fall into the hands of
these Mexican dogs."

As soon as Narvaez's men and many of our old soldiers heard this, they
stowed away as much as they could. For myself, whose failing had never
been to covet gold, I took four chalchihuis stones out of a small box,
and secreted them between my cuirass. Cortes soon after gave this box in
safe keeping to his steward, and I do think he would have demanded the
said four chalchihuis stones back again of me if I had not quickly
secreted them. This small treasure proved afterwards of the greatest
value to me towards the curing of my wounds, and in procuring myself
food.

All matters being now properly ordered, and the mode of our retreat
settled, we began to move forward. It was about the hour of midnight,
and rather dark, a thin mist hung over the town, and a gentle rain was
falling.

The moment we began to move forward in the above-mentioned order, the
rear-guard being already in motion, and our moveable bridge fixed, and
Sandoval, with his body of horse, and Cortes, with those under his
command, and many other soldiers, had passed across, the wild war music
and loud yells of the Mexicans suddenly burst forth. "Up, up,
Tlatelulco!" they cried; "out with your canoes! The teules are running
away: cut off their retreat over the bridges!"

And before we had time to look about us, we were attacked by vast bodies
of the enemy, and the whole lake was instantly covered with canoes, so
that we were unable to move on any further, although many of our men had
already passed the moveable bridge. Now the most obstinate conflict
ensued for the possession of this, and, as misfortunes never come
singly, it happened that two of our horses should slide out on the wet
planks, become unmanageable, and roll over into the lake. This caused
the bridge itself to overbalance and fall down. A number of Mexicans
that instant fell furiously on us, and, though we exerted ourselves to
the utmost, and cut down numbers of the enemy, we were unable to recover
the bridge. As, however, those behind, kept continually pushing on those
in front, the opening in the canal was speedily filled up with dead
horses and their riders, who were inevitably lost if they were unable to
swim. The unmerciful enemy now attacked us from all sides. A number of
Tlascallans and our Indian female servants were carried off, with the
baggage and cannon; numbers of our men were drowned, and no less a
number, who were trying to save themselves by swimming, were taken
prisoners by those in the

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