brewing against the adventurers. Montezuma, she learned, had stationed twenty thousand Mexicans near the city, who, together with the Cholulans, were to assault the invaders in the narrow streets and avenues, as they quitted the town; and, thus, he hoped, by successful treachery, to rid the land of such dangerous visitors either by slaughter in conflict, or to offer them, when made captive, upon the altars of the sacred temple in Cholula and on the teocallis of Mexico, as proper sacrifices to the bloody gods of his country.
Cortéz, however, was not to be so easily outwitted and entrapped. He, in turn, resorted to stratagem. Concentrating all his Spanish army, and concerting a signal for co-operation with his Indian allies, he suddenly fell upon the Cholulans at an unexpected moment. Three thousand of the citizens perished in the frightful massacre that ensued; and Cortéz pursued his uninterrupted way towards the fated capital of the Aztecs, after this awful chastisement, which was perhaps needful to relieve him from the danger of utter annihilation in the heart of an enemy's country with so small a band of countrymen in whom he could confide.