At length the day was fixed for a general assault upon the city by the two divisions under Alvarado and Cortéz. As usual, the battle was preceded by the celebration of mass, and the army then advanced in three divisions up the most important streets. They entered the town, cast down the barricades which had been erected to impede their progress, and, with remarkable ease, penetrated even to the neighborhood of the market-place. But the very facility of their advance alarmed the cautious mind of Cortéz, and induced him to believe that this slack resistance was but designed to seduce him farther and farther within the city walls until he found himself beyond the reach of succor or retreat. This made him pause. His men, more eager for victory and plunder than anxious to secure themselves by filling up the canals and clearing the streets of their impediments, had rushed madly on without taking proper precaution to protect their rear, if the enemy became too hot in front. Suddenly the horn of Guatemozin was heard from a neighboring Teocalli, and the flying Indians, at the sacred and warning sound, turned upon the Spaniards with all the mingled feeling of reinspired revenge and religion. For a while the utmost disorder prevailed in the ranks of the invaders, Spaniards, Tlascalans, Tezcocans and Otomies, were mixed in a common crowd of combatants. From the tops of houses; from converging streets; from the edges of canals,--crowds of Aztecs swarmed and poured their vollies of javelins, arrows and stones. Many were driven into the lake. Cortéz himself had nigh fallen a victim in the dreadful _melee_, and was rescued with difficulty. Meanwhile, Alvarado and Sandoval had penetrated the city from the western causeway, and aided in stemming the onslaught of the Aztecs. For a while the combined forces served to check the boiling tide of battle sufficiently to enable those who were most sorely pressed to be gradually withdrawn, yet not until sixty-two Spaniards and a multitude of allies, besides many killed and wounded, had fallen captives and victims in the hands of their implacable enemies. It was yet day when the broken band withdrew from the city, and returned to the camps either on the first slopes of the hills, or at the terminations of the causeways. But sad, indeed, was the spectacle that presented itself to their eyes, as they gazed towards the city, through the clear atmosphere of those elevated regions, when they heard the drum sound from the top of the Great Teocalli. It was the dread signal of sacrifice. The wretched Spaniards, who had been captured in the fight, were, one after another, stretched on the stone in front of the hideous idols, and their reeking hearts, torn from their bosoms, thrown as propitiating morsels into the flames before the deities. The mutilated remains of the captives were then flung down the steep sides of the pyramid, to glut the crowds at its base with a "cannibal repast." * * * * *