The first division was assigned to the command of Sandoval, and was ordered to march southward to the city of Iztapalapan, which commanded the principal causeway, or approach to Mexico. The second was given to the ferocious De Olid, whose destination was to Cojohuacan, a city southwest of Mexico, the dike from which led to that betwixt the metropolis and Iztapalapan. The third was appointed to the Capitan del Salto, or Alvarado, who was to take possession of Tacuba, which commanded the shortest of the causeways. The two last divisions were ordered to proceed in company, around the northern borders of the lake, destroying the towns on the route, and separating at Tacuba. The fleet Cortes reserved in his own hands, intending, besides commanding the whole lake, so to act with it, as to give assistance to each division, as it might be needed. The royal city of Tezcuco was to be entrusted to the government of the young king Ixtlilxochitl, the cavalier Don Francisco de Guzman remaining, though somewhat reluctantly, to guide and control his actions, under the appearance of adding to his state and security. These preliminaries arranged, the remainder of the day was devoted to festivities. The great work of conquest was to begin on the morrow. CHAPTER II. The extraordinary and exciting events which took place in the prison, that night which Juan Lerma esteemed the last he should spend upon earth, had reduced to exhaustion a body already enfeebled by inaction, and a mind almost consumed by care. Hence, when, having struggled for a time with the restlessness and delirium which, in such cases, usher in sleep with a thousand phantasms--apparitions both of sight and sound,--he at last fell asleep, his slumbers were profound and dreamless. The loud alarms, which drove the executioners of Villafana from the Hall of Audience, made no impression on his ear; and even the yells, that accompanied the attack on his dreary abode, were equally unheard. The guards were routed, the doors were forced, and he was lifted to his feet by unknown hands, almost before he had opened his eyes; and even voices, that, at another time, would have attracted his attention, and words that would have inspired him with the joy of deliverance, were all lost upon him. Nay, such was the stupor which oppressed his mind, that he was dragged from the dungeon, and hurried rapidly along through a host of infidels to the water-side, before he was convinced that all was not really a dream. Then, indeed, the bustle, the din of shrieks and Indian drums, mingled with the sounds of trumpets and fire-arms, the howl of winds and the plash of waves, though they recalled him to his wits, yet left him confounded, and, for a while, incapable of understanding and appreciating his situation. In this condition, he was deposited in a canoe of some magnitude, which instantly putting off from the shore, under the impulse of thirty paddles, he soon found himself darting over the lake at a speed which