Presently the murmur grew to a roar, and from this direction and from that, armed men poured towards the causeway of Tlacopan.  Some came on foot, but the most of them were in canoes which covered the waters of the lake further than the ear could hear.  Now the Spaniards to the number of fifteen hundred or so, accompanied by some six or eight thousand Tlascalans, were emerging on the causeway in a long thin line.  Guatemoc and I rushed before them, collecting men as we went, till we came to the first canal, where canoes were already gathering by scores.  The head of the Spanish column reached the canal and the fight began, which so far as the Aztecs were concerned was a fray without plan or order, for in that darkness and confusion the captains could not see their men or the men hear their captains.  But they were there in countless numbers and had only one desire in their breasts, to kill the Teules.  A cannon roared, sending a storm of bullets through us, and by its flash we saw that the Spaniards carried a timber bridge with them, which they were placing across the canal.  Then we fell on them, every man fighting for himself.  Guatemoc and I were swept over that bridge by the first rush of the enemy, as leaves are swept in a gale, and though both of us won through safely we saw each other no more that night.  With us and after us came the long array of Spaniards and Tlascalans, and from every side the Aztecs poured upon them, clinging to their struggling line as ants cling to a wounded worm.

How can I tell all that came to pass that night?  I cannot, for I saw but little of it.  All I know is that for two hours I was fighting like a madman.  The foe crossed the first canal, but when all were over the bridge was sunk so deep in the mud that it could not be stirred, and three furlongs on ran a second canal deeper and wider than the first.  Over this they could not cross till it was bridged with the dead.  It seemed as though all hell had broken loose upon that narrow ridge of ground.  The sound of cannons and of arquebusses, the shrieks of agony and fear, the shouts of the Spanish soldiers, the war-cries of the Aztecs, the screams of wounded horses, the wail of women, the hiss of hurtling darts and arrows, and the dull noise of falling blows went up to heaven in one hideous hurly-burly.  Like a frightened mob of cattle the long Spanish array swayed this way and that, bellowing as it swayed.  Many rolled down the sides of the causeway to be slaughtered in the water of the lake, or borne away to sacrifice in the canoes, many were drowned in the canals, and yet more were trampled to death in the mud.  Hundreds of the Aztecs perished also, for the most part beneath the weapons of their own friends, who struck and shot not knowing on whom the blow should fall or in whose breast the arrow would find its home.