“Base Aztec!” they cried out in loud tones. “You are a woman and a coward! The white men have made you a female, fit only to weave and to spin! Begone! Back to your needlework and to your Spanish brothers!”
Immediately the Emperor was assailed by a cloud of rocks and arrows. A stone struck the miserable man in the head, with a sickening thud, and knocked him to the ground. A chief of high rank hurled his javelin at him, but it just missed him as he fell. The Mexicans were shocked at their own act of sacrilege and set up a dismal cry. They dispersed, panic-stricken, and not one remained in the great square before the palace.
With care and gentleness the Spaniards carried the body of Montezuma to his own apartments. As soon as he recovered from his insensibility, the full misery of his situation broke upon him. He, the once great and powerful Montezuma, had been reviled and rejected by his own people. Utterly crushed in spirit, he refused all food or assistance, even tearing off the bandages which the Spaniards applied to his wounds. He sat motionless, with eyes cast upon the ground, perpetually brooding over his humiliation, and gradually grew so weak that he could scarcely sit upright.
A body of Mexicans now took possession of the famous temple to the war god, Huitzilopochtli, which was opposite the Spanish palace, and rose to a height of nearly a hundred and fifty feet. From this vantage point the Aztecs discharged such a volley of arrows upon the garrison, that it was impossible for any soldier to show himself for an instant outside the wall of the palace, without being immediately struck. The Mexicans, meanwhile, were completely sheltered. As it was absolutely necessary that they be driven from this point of vantage, Cortés intrusted the task to his chamberlain, Escobar, giving him a hundred men for the purpose. Three desperate attempts were made, but being repulsed with considerable loss, this officer returned, and Cortés determined to lead the storming party himself. A wound in his left hand had almost disabled it, but he strapped his shield to the injured member and thus sallied forth.
Several thousand of the Tlascalan allies were with him, and, at the head of three hundred chosen cavaliers, he now dashed from the palace. In the courtyard of the temple, a body of Mexicans was drawn up to dispute his passage, but he charged them briskly, and, although the horses could not stand up and had to be returned to the Spanish quarters, the Aztecs were dispersed. The cavaliers and their Indian allies now pressed up to the flight of stone steps which led into the _teocalli_. The warriors were drawn up on every terrace, as well as on the topmost platform, and showered down heavy stones, beams, and burning rafters. The Spaniards kept on, in spite of the fact that many of them were badly wounded by the falling beams and arrows, and, aided by a brisk fire from the muskateers below, soon drove the Aztecs to the broad summit of the _teocalli_. Here a desperate hand-to-hand fight took place.