As we sprang down the steps--with Fray Antonio, once more in the guise of a non-combatant, safe in the midst of our company--we heard a great outcry from below, and saw a considerable body of men marching up towards us steadily from the water-side; but the alarm that sight of them gave us was only momentary, for their shouts, and the shouts of our men in answer, showed us that these were friends come to our support. However we had no great need of them, for those of the enemy whom we left alive behind us seemed suddenly to have grown sick of fighting, and made no attempt to follow after us down the stairs. Yet the coming of this supporting force, to be just in the matter, no doubt was the saving of us; for more than half of the men who had been with us when we started on our march down through the city had been slain by the way, and nearly all in our company were more or less disabled by wounds. Tizoc and Young and Rayburn had come through it all without as much as a scratch, and because of their extraordinary strength these three were almost as fresh as when the fighting began; but the rest of us were sorely weary, and our breathing was so heavy and so tremulous that each breath was like a long-drawn sob. Truly, then, we were glad to fall in in advance of the supporting column and so make our way, with a strong rear-guard for our protection, across the bit of level land that lay between us and the lake.
At the water-side boats were in readiness for us, and here we found also the members of the Council who had ordered, and who were the recognized leaders of, the revolt. There was still more fighting ahead of us, for the necessity of sending back the relief party had prevented the seizing of the water-gate; and this was a matter that had to be attended to quickly, for we could see bodies of men coming down several of the streets in pursuit of us, and unless we escaped outside the wall before they overtook us there was a strong and dismal probability that our whole plan would fail. Therefore, we tumbled aboard the boats with all possible rapidity, and while the pursuing parties still were far in our rear we shoved off from the shore.
Two minutes' quick rowing sufficed to carry our flotilla of boats across the basin, and so brought us to the long pier that extended landward from beside the water-gate, and from which an open stair-way ascended to the top of the wall. On the pier there was no one at all to oppose our landing; and the force on the wall was not likely to be a large one, for the outbreak had come so suddenly that there had been no time to increase the small detail maintained in this position in times of peace. Only a few of our men, therefore--thirty or forty, perhaps--were ordered out of the boats to the attack, of which the leader was Tizoc, and with which Rayburn and Young went as volunteers. I also would have joined the party; but Rayburn, knowing that I was slightly wounded, begged me to stay where I was; and Young, as he ran up the stairs, called back to me: "You just see that they keep steam up, Professor. We'll attend t' takin' off th' brakes."