CHAPTER XXXVIII.
LAUNCHING THE FIRST AMERICAN WARSHIPS
There was no harbor at Tezcuco where vessels the size of thebrigantines, which had been so skilfully brought thus far over leaguesof rugged mountain trails, could be put together and launched. Indeed,the only place fitted for such work was half a league distant from thelake shore. Here, therefore, was the shipyard located, and while thevessels were being rebuilt, a force of eight thousand laborers wereset to work to construct a canal from it to the deep waters of thelake. This canal, which when finished was twelve feet deep and twentywide, was provided with gates, and had its banks strengthened by woodenpalisades or, as was in some places necessary, by walls of masonry. Thelabor of constructing it was so great that, even with the immense forceof workmen engaged, it occupied two months.
During this time, Cortes, with three hundred Spaniards and Huetzin'sentire force of Tlascalans, swept entirely around the valley, and evenpenetrated into the mountains on the southeast, dispersing Aztec armiesand capturing or conciliating Aztec cities, until only the capitalremained unsubdued.
While thus engaged in cutting off the enemy's sources of supply, not aday passed without its fighting or deeds of heroism. One of the lastcities to be thus attacked was Zochimilco, on the border of the saltlake. After a stout resistance the enemy gave way and fled through thecity streets, pursued by almost the entire force of Christians andtheir allies. Cortes, being weary, remained with but two servants nearthe principal gate, to which the troops had been ordered to return.
Huetzin, who, as usual, tired of slaughter long before the vengeanceof his fierce followers was satisfied, was the first to make his wayback to the place of rendezvous. As he approached it, he was dismayedto see a fresh body of Aztecs rush out of a neighboring lane and make afurious attack upon the general. He defended himself valiantly, but wasquickly overpowered by numbers. His horse was thrown down, and Corteshimself received a severe blow on the head. Ere he could rise, he wasseized by his exulting foes. As they were dragging him away Huetzinreached the spot and sprang at them with the fury of a tiger. Almostbefore the astonished Aztecs knew they were attacked, three of theirnumber lay dead, pierced or cut down by the young Knight's good Toledoblade. With this timely aid, and that of his servants, the generalregained his feet, tore loose from those who still held him, vaultedagain into the saddle, and, in less time than it takes to write it,was scattering the foes who had so nearly dragged him to the altar ofsacrifice. It was the narrowest escape of the Conqueror's career upto that moment; and, had the Aztecs been content to kill him insteadof being fanatically determined to deliver him to their priests,Guatamotzin might have reigned for years undisturbed.
When next the General and Huetzin met, the former dismounted to greetthe young Knight, and grasping his hand, said, earnestly:
"I am well aware of my indebtedness to thee Don Juan, and to my dyingday will I not forget it. Still, see thou to it that thy vigilancemakes me not over-confident. With such quick blades as that of thineand of trusty Sandoval ever at hand, I am apt to lose sight of all needfor care."
At the end of this expedition, during which there was enough ofdesperate fighting, hair-breadth escapes and rescues, sacking ofcities, and romantic adventures, to fill a volume of knight-errantry,Cortes led his spoil-laden troops once more into Tezcuco, where heheard, at once, three items of good news. His brigantines were readyfor launching; the canal was finished; and strong reinforcements, forwhich he had sent to Hispaniola six months before, had arrived.
As, to his mind, the launching of his little navy would mark thebeginning of the end, he determined to inaugurate the event with duepomp. Accordingly, on the 28th day of April, 1521, after attending thecelebration of high mass, the entire army, with sounding trumpets,rolling drums, and waving banners, marched to the shipyard. Here thethirteen vessels, with masts stepped, sails bent, and colors flying,sat on their well-greased ways, awaiting the signal that should consignthem to the element for which they were intended.
At the firing of a cannon the first slid gracefully into the water.Then came another gun and another launch; and so on, until, with thethirteenth gun, the thirteenth brigantine entered the water, and thefirst American-built navy was afloat. Now, amid a roar of artillery andmusketry, the acclamations of tens of thousands of dusky spectators,and the sound of martial music, with the banner of Castile flying fromevery mast-head, and their own guns answering the glad salute from theshore, the fleet dropped down the canal, and spreading its white wingsto a brisk breeze, stood proudly out over the broad waters of the lake.
It was a novel spectacle to the simple natives, and a glad one tothe white conquerors; for, with the combined forces of an army and anavy opposed to it, they felt assured that the bloody priesthood ofTenochtitlan was destined to a speedy overthrow. So inspired were theyby these feelings, that, led by their commander, the entire Christianarmy raised its voice in a grand Te Deum.
At this time, exclusive of their allies, the besieging army consistedof eight hundred and eighteen foot soldiers, and eighty-seven cavalry.For weapons they had one hundred and eighteen muskets and crossbows,three heavy iron guns, and fifteen falconets of brass, half a tonof powder, fifty thousand copper-headed arrows, and a thousand longChinantla pikes, besides their swords and the lances of the cavaliers.To each of the brigantines was allotted a falconet, and three hundredof the troops were detailed to man the fleet. The remainder of theSpaniards, together with one hundred thousand warriors from Tlascalaand other allied cities, all eager for the downfall of Tenochtitlan,the stronghold of the oppressor, were divided into three armies,commanded by Sandoval, Alvarado, and Olid.
By the end of May, everything being in readiness, these armies weredispatched to their stations at the ends of the three great causewaysleading to the city, while Cortes took temporary command of the fleet.He set sail from Tezcuco; but before he reached Istapalapan the breezefailed, and his vessels lay becalmed. While thus helpless, they wereapproached by an immense flotilla of Aztec canoes and periaguas, sentout by Guatamotzin for their destruction. These came on boldly untilwithin pistol shot of the drifting fleet, and then halted, irresoluteas to how they should attack such monsters.
Just then, a light air springing up, the brigantines bore directlydown on the gathered canoes, which greeted them with a dense, butineffective, flight of arrows and stones. Gathering headway as theyadvanced, the vessels crashed into the massed flotilla with frightfuleffect, at the same time letting fly their falconets to right andleft. The rippling waters were instantly covered with the wreckage ofshattered canoes and struggling human forms. The few survivors fled,with all speed, back to their city, and thus ended the first navalengagement in American waters.
Continuing his way to the great dike, by which he had made his firstentry into Tenochtitlan, Cortes assaulted and captured the fort ofXoloc, by which it was defended, midway between the mainland and thecity. Here he planted his heavy guns, and this place he made hisheadquarters during the siege.
In the meantime Alvarado had succeeded, after a stubborn battle,in cutting the aqueduct by which fresh water reached the city fromChapultepec. He next attempted to gain possession of the fatal causewayof Tlacopan, but was driven back, with heavy losses, after severalhours of fighting.
After a week spent in the comparative inactivity of perfecting theblockade, the Commander resolved upon a general assault on the cityby the three armies. As Huetzin had no longer a separate command,he asked and obtained permission to devote himself to the especialdestruction of the Aztec gods. For this purpose he carefully selectedone hundred of his most valiant warriors, and attached himself to thedivision led by the General over the causeway of Iztapalapan.
Its several openings were guarded by strong barricades, behind whichthe enemy made resolute stands. By the aid of the brigantines, whichattacked them on each side, these were successfully carried, one afteranother, and at length the conquerors trod once more the familiarstreets of the city.
How different now wa
s this reception from that of their first entry!Then, myriads of eager and welcoming spectators, men, women, andchildren, were gathered on the flower-roofed houses. Now, most of thewomen and children had been sent from the city, and the house-tops werethronged only with grim warriors, who showered down a continuous stormof arrows, darts, and great stones, that stretched many a bold Spaniardand swarthy Tlascalan in the dust.
At every canal in place of a bridge was a rampart, that must bebattered down by the heavy guns. Still, doggedly fighting, thebesiegers made their slow way to the square, on one side of which stoodthe quarters they had evacuated on the _noche triste_, and on the otherthe great temple of Huitzil. As the Spaniards cleared the courtyard ofthe temple, Huetzin and his agile followers dashed up the long flightsof steps to its top. Here they found only a few frantic priests, whomthey pitched headlong from the lofty platform. In the shrine was a newimage of the war-god, more hideous and more lavishly covered with goldthan its predecessor. This they dragged from its pedestal, and, withan exulting heart, the young Toltec saw it, too, go thundering andcrashing to the base of the great teocal.
Outraged and infuriated by this sacrilege, the Aztec warriors gatheredabout the temple in such overwhelming numbers, that the besiegers wereforced back, down the avenue up which they had come; and only by themost determined fighting did Huetzin and his followers escape frombeing cut off, and rejoin their friends.
Although on this occasion the besiegers were driven from the city onall sides, Huetzin at least felt that the day's fighting and losseshad not been in vain. He knew that his time for triumph was at hand,and that, with this overthrow of their war-god, the power of the Aztecpriests had received a blow from which it would never recover.