CHAPTER XXIV. FIGHT UPON THE TEMPLE SUMMIT. June , 1520.

with one hundred men¹⁷ and some allies to dispossess them. This was no easy task, for the pyramid was of great extent and over eighty feet in height, composed of a series of abrupt stone terraces, each receding about six feet from the one beneath, and so arranged that the ascent led along the entire circuit of each ledge before the steps conducting to the next could be gained.¹⁸ Twenty men, says Cortés, could have held it against a thousand; yet the one hundred were to attempt it. Step by step they fought their way, beneath showers of arrows, and against javelins, and sword and lance thrusts from the upper ledges. More dangerous even than these weapons were the cumbrous missiles in the shape of heavy stones and timber which came crashing down upon them. Three times¹⁹ did Escobar lead his men to the charge, only to see them repulsed and sent rolling down the steps and over the ledges. Finally he sent word to Cortés that the task was impracticable. The general received this notice while vainly battling at the canal, and he eagerly seized upon it as excuse for changing his base of operation. He hurried to the spot, threw a cordon round the pyramid, and although badly wounded in the left hand he immediately led his men to the charge. The Spaniards were making fair progress, when two heavy beams, which had been reserved at the summit for the last extremity, were loosened and sent tumbling down the side, so directed as to sweep to destruction the assailants along its entire length. At about the centre of their terrible passage, full before them, stood Cortés. Immediate death for himself and his brave comrades seemed inevitable, when behold! by some unseen finger the beams were turned end foremost and shot harmlessly through the opening made for them by the soldiers. “Thanks be to God and the virgin, whose image was placed in this tower!” cried Cortés, as without the loss of a moment he sprang forward and speedily gained the summit. There the fight assumed the form of a gladiatorial combat, a hand-to-hand and line-to-line conflict, poised in mid-air on this narrow slippery summit, and in full view of the whole city. As if by common consent the combatants below paused in their bloody work and stood breathless, lost in the more thrilling sight above.