attempting it. We were all dreadfully wounded, yet we were determined to gain the summit to plant our standard there, and set fire to the idols. When we had accomplished this, we had still to fight about with the Mexicans at the foot of the temple until night came on; for owing to their immense numbers it was impossible to give them an entire defeat.
While we were accomplishing this splendid deed of arms on the temple of Huitzilopochtli, Cortes was hotly engaged with the enemy in another quarter of the town, at a great distance from us. When he saw the flames issuing on a sudden from the summit of the chief temple, and our standard waving there, he expressed his joy aloud, and all his troops would gladly have been with us at that moment. But they found too many difficulties to surmount, as the distance between us was a good mile, and a number of bridges and canals intervening, all of which they must have forced. Besides this they everywhere met with so determined an opposition that it was quite impossible for them to fight their way into the heart of the city. It was not till four days after, when the three divisions had cleared the streets of the enemy and could meet together without any further obstacle, that they likewise advanced up to this temple, and Quauhtemoctzin found himself obliged to retire with the whole of his forces into a part of the city which lay in the midst of the lake, after we had levelled all his palaces to the ground. But even from this quarter the Mexicans continued their attacks upon us, and when we commenced our retreat towards nightfall they followed us with greater fierceness than on former occasions.
Cortes, finding that day after day passed away without the Mexicans seeming any way inclined to sue for peace, determined to try if he could not gain some decisive victory over them by suddenly falling upon them from an ambush. For this purpose he selected thirty horse and one hundred of the most active foot soldiers from the three divisions; these troops were ordered to conceal themselves with 3000 Tlascallans very