Aguilar then desired an interview between their chiefs and our general, saying that he had matters of high importance, and of a holy nature to inform them of, and requested permission to supply our fleet with wood and water:  But they only repeated their former threats.  Seeing no other alternative but retreat or war, Cortes ordered three guns to be placed in each vessel, and divided the musketeers and cross-bows among them.  We who had been here before recollected a narrow path which led from the point of Palmares, through some marshes and across several brooks to the town of Tabasco, of which we informed Cortes; who accordingly detached early next morning 100 soldiers under Alonzo de Avila, with orders to march into the rear of the town by that path; and, as soon as he heard the discharge of artillery, he was to attack the town on that side, while the main body did the same on the other side.  Cortes then proceeded up the river with the vessels, intending to disembark as near as possible to the town; and as soon as the enemy saw us approaching, they sallied out in their canoes from among the mangroves, and a vast multitude collected against us at the place where we meant to land, making a prodigious noise of trumpets, horns, and drums.  Before commencing the attack, Cortes ordered Diego de Godoy, a royal notary, to make a formal demand of liberty to supply ourselves with wood and water, and to listen to what we had to communicate in the service of GOD and our king, protesting that in case of violence, they should be held responsible for all the mischief that might follow.  But, after all this was explained to them, they remained inflexibly determined to oppose us.  They made the signal with their drums to commence a general attack, and immediately assailed us with a flight of arrows.  They then closed round us in their canoes, fighting with lances and bows and arrows, and we had great difficulty to force our way to the shore, fighting up to our middles in the water, and struggling to extricate ourselves from deep mud, in which Cortes lost one of his buskins, and had to land barefooted.  As soon as we got on dry ground, Cortes placed himself at our head, calling out St Jago, and we fell upon the enemy with great violence, whom we forced to retreat within some circular entrenchments which they had constructed of large timber.  We soon drove them from these works, and made our way into the town by certain small gateways, forcing them before us up the main street to a second barricade, where they withstood us manfully, calling out al calachioni, or kill the captain.  While engaged at this barricade, de Avila and the party which had marched from Point Palmares, came up very opportunely to our assistance.  He had been much retarded in his march, as he had to break down several barricades in the path through the marsh, so that he now arrived at the critical moment, for we too had been detained a considerable time in making the formal summons by the notary.  We now drove the enemy before us, fighting manfully and never turning their backs, to a large enclosed court, in which were three idol-houses and several large halls.  They had here collected all their most valuable effects, and made a brave resistance at this last post, but were at last obliged to evacuate it also.