On his arrival in Mexico, Montezuma, who still remained a prisoner in the Spanish quarters, came to welcome him; but Cortés received him so coldly that the emperor soon retired. Earnestly desirous, however, of vindicating himself from the imputation of having been accessory to the assault on the garrison, he soon after sent some of his attendants to solicit an interview with the Spanish general. Irritated by the continued demonstrations of hostility on the part of the people, Cortés now threw off all restraint, and treated the message with the utmost contumely, exclaiming, “What have I to do with this dog of a king?” The nobles, swelling with indignation, withdrew. Meanwhile the people of the city were busily engaged in preparing for a vigorous assault on the Spanish quarters. Cortés had just despatched a messenger to Vera Cruz, to announce his safe arrival in the capital, and his confident expectation of a speedy submission on the part of the rebels, as he termed them, when suddenly the din of war rose on the air, and his messenger, who had been gone scarcely half an hour, returned in breathless haste with the intelligence that the city was all in arms. The appalling tidings were speedily confirmed, by the appearance of the furious populace rushing on through every avenue towards the fortress, as if determined to carry it by storm. The conflict was fierce and obstinate. Nothing daunted by the storm of iron hail poured in upon their defenceless bodies from the Spanish ordnance, which stretched them on the ground by hundreds, they pressed on up to the very muzzles of the guns. Repulsed on one quarter, they turned with undiminished fury to another,--striving, now, to scale the parapet, now to force the gates, and now to undermine or open a breach in the walls,--and finally endeavouring to fire the edifice by shooting burning arrows into it. In this last they were partially successful; but the approach of night at length caused them to retire.