On the following day the Mexicans prepared to renew the attack; but Cortés resolved to anticipate it by a sortie. Accordingly he sallied out at the head of his cavalry, supported by the infantry and his Tlascalan allies. The Mexicans fled in disorder; but soon rallying behind a barricade which they had thrown up across the street, they began to pour in volleys of missiles upon the Spaniards, which served in a degree to check their career. With the aid of his field pieces, however, Cortés speedily cleared away the barricade, when the Mexicans again turned and fled. But now, as the Spaniards continued to advance, the enemy had recourse to a new mode of annoyance. Mounting to the roofs of the houses, they hurled down large stones upon the heads of the cavaliers with a force which would often tumble them from their saddles. Unable to protect themselves against this species of missiles, Cortés ordered the buildings to be set on fire, and in this manner several hundred houses were destroyed. The Spaniards were now victorious at every point; at length, sated with slaughter, and perceiving that the day was beginning to decline, Cortés withdrew his troops to their quarters. The Mexicans, however, were determined to allow the hated strangers no rest. Although, conformably to the usage of their nation, they made no attempt to renew the combat during the night, they nevertheless bivouacked around the fortress, and disturbed the slumbers of their enemy by insulting taunts and menaces, which indicated but too clearly that their ferocity was in no degree subdued by the terrible havoc dealt out to them during the two preceding days. In the hope of influencing the Mexicans, Cortés now brought out Montezuma to command them to cease from hostilities. At the sight of their venerated sovereign in his royal robes, they dropped their weapons, and silently bowed their heads in prostration to the ground. Obeying Cortés’s directions, he addressed them, and plied them with arguments to urge them to peace. When he ceased, sullen murmurs and indignant reproaches ran through the ranks, and, in a rage, deeming their sovereign only the supple instrument of their foe, flights of arrows and volleys of stones were poured forth on the ramparts where he stood, so that, before he could be protected, Montezuma fell, wounded by the hand of one of his own subjects. Horror-struck, the Mexicans fled; while Montezuma, disdaining to live after this degradation, died in the Spanish quarters.