Meanwhile Martin Lopez, the master shipwright in Tlascala, had arranged for the transportation of the brigantines. A trial launch had been made of one or two above a dam thrown across Zahuatl River,45 and this proving satisfactory they were broken up. Upon the shoulders of eight thousand carriers were now loaded the separate pieces of timber and planks, duly marked and numbered for fitting them together; also the spars, cordage, sails, together with a quantity of
ammunition, two heavy guns, and other effects.46 Gayly they bent to the burden wherein lay enginery so portentous for the destruction of the hated Aztecs. The caravan set forth, escorted by a large force of warriors, and halted at Hueyotlipan to await the Spanish convoy. After a time the Tlascaltecs became impatient, and regardless of warnings proceeded. While encamped near the border an alarm was raised, and tumultuously the warriors rushed to arms to protect a portion at least of the train which had cost such labor and embodied such hopes. The next moment a cheer was heard. It was Sandoval and his men.
With this new protection many of the Tlascaltec escort could be dismissed, and the remaining twenty thousand were redistributed, the rear being assigned to the leading chief, Chichimecatl, and the flanks to Axotecatl and Teotepil.47
It was a strange sight in those parts, this serpentine procession as it wound its way across the Tezcucan border, along the narrow defiles of the mountains,48 extending two miles from front to rear, it is said. A fleet impelled by human agencies over mountain and plain, through forest and dale, it was indeed a “cosa maravillosa,” as Cortés expresses it. The feat of Vasco Nuñez stood repeated, but magnified in some respects, in the number of the vessels, in the distance of the journey, the lurking