Alvarado had meanwhile advanced along the road to Tlatelulco from his causeway, leaving Sandoval to coöperate along the flank and to direct the movements of the brigantines and the filling of the channels. The advance was fiercely resisted by the Mexicans from roofs, cross-lanes, and barricades, and hundreds had been severely wounded, chiefly Tlascaltecs, only too many fatally, yet he persevered. He was already near the market, the aim of all efforts, when the drum and trumpet came to startle his men and to encourage the Mexicans to greater resistance. Progress was now almost checked, and soon came the cry, “Malinche is dead!” “Sandoval and the other captains are dead!” “Behold their faces!” And therewith several heads with gory beards were cast before them. “This shall be your fate!”
Alvarado’s men were white with dismay, and but for the intrepid courage of their leader the rout of Cortés’ party might have been repeated. Making a bold stand with his Spaniards, he ordered the Tlascaltecs to fall back and leave the retreat open. They needed no second instructions to this end, for the bleeding heads lent wings to their haste. Then grew the onslaught fiercer than ever, for the retreat of Cortés’ forces enabled a larger number of enemies to turn against Alvarado and Sandoval. The latter also received his cast of bloody heads with a new string of prominent names, all calculated to inspire terror.
“By this time they had us all killed,” adds Bernal Diaz, “but, in truth, we were all wounded, and filled with anguish concerning the fate of our chief. Without God’s aid we could never have escaped from the swords and clutches of the Mexicans.” Some pious chroniclers, indeed, assert as usual that the virgin appeared in person, together with perennial Santiago, to save the Spaniards from their greatest peril.25