Now day by day and week by week the fighting went on with varying success, sometimes in the suburbs of the city, sometimes on the lake, and sometimes in the very streets.  Time on time the Spaniards were driven back with loss, time on time they advanced again from their different camps.  Once we captured sixty of them and more than a thousand of their allies.  All these were sacrificed on the altar of Huitzel, and given over to be devoured by the Aztecs according to the beastlike custom which in Anahuac enjoined the eating of the bodies of those who were offered to the gods, not because the Indians love such meat but for a secret religious reason.

In vain did I pray Guatemoc to forego this horror.

‘Is this a time for gentleness?’ he answered fiercely.  ’I cannot save them from the altar, and I would not if I could.  Let the dogs die according to the custom of the land, and to you, Teule my brother, I say presume not too far.’

Alas! the heart of Guatemoc grew ever fiercer as the struggle wore on, and indeed it was little to be wondered at.

This was the dreadful plan of Cortes:  to destroy the city piecemeal as he advanced towards its heart, and it was carried out without mercy.  So soon as the Spaniards got footing in a quarter, thousands of the Tlascalans were set to work to fire the houses and burn all in them alive.  Before the siege was done Tenoctitlan, queen of the valley, was but a heap of blackened ruins.  Cortes might have cried over Mexico with Isaiah the prophet:  ’Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols:  the worm is spread under thee and the worms cover thee.  How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground which didst weaken the nations!’

In all these fights I took my part, though it does not become me to boast my prowess.  Still the Spaniards knew me well and they had good reason.  Whenever they saw me they would greet me with revilings, calling me ‘traitor and renegade,’ and ‘Guatemoc’s white dog,’ and moreover, Cortes set a price upon my head, for he knew through his spies that some of Guatemoc’s most successful attacks and stratagems had been of my devising.  But I took no heed even when their insults pierced me like arrows, for though many of the Aztecs were my friends and I hated the Spaniards, it was a shameful thing that a Christian man should be warring on the side of cannibals who made human sacrifice.  I took no heed, since always I was seeking for my foe de Garcia.  He was there I knew, for I saw him many times, but I could never come at him.  Indeed, if I watched for him he also watched for me, but with another purpose, to avoid me.  For now as of old de Garcia feared me, now as of old he believed that I should bring his death upon him.

It was the custom of warriors in the opposing armies to send challenges to single combat, one to another, and many such duels were fought in the sight of all, safe conduct being given to the combatants and their seconds.  Upon a day, despairing of meeting him face to face in battle, I sent a challenge to de Garcia by a herald, under his false name of Sarceda.  In an hour the herald returned with this message written on paper in Spanish: