After consultation with his captains Cuauhtemoc resolved to die fighting with his people rather than let them become the slaves of the Spaniards. The chief food of the inhabitants now was the green vegetation growing on the lake shallows, and they drank the saline water from the same source because fresh water was no longer to be had. Numerous must have been the victims of hunger and thirst and pestilence in the Aztec quarters, and great were the losses in the continued combats with an enemy far stronger, whose own losses were being made up by uninterrupted accessions of strength, while there was the whole countryside open from which supplies kept pouring in. It is significant that the success of the Aztecs in blocking the general assault of their capital made no impression outside. So far as we know, no attempts were made to break the Spanish investing lines, nor, on the other hand, did the failure to take the town in any way stop the movement to throw off the Aztec yoke which was plainly the prime motive on the part of the natives in helping the Europeans to take Mexico. The siege had now lasted forty-five days; it was time, therefore, to make a radical change in the primitive methods of attack hitherto followed by Cortez, methods that recall the Homeric accounts of the siege of Troy. Each day there was hot fighting in the streets or on the lake where the Aztec canoes gathered about the brigantines. At nightfall there was a general return to the camp. The new plan was to destroy all the houses in the portion of the streets where the daily fighting took place. As the horsemen charged, the space was cleared and the work of destruction began. On the exposed part by the lake the brigantines and the canoes of the allies were able to do much effective damage. The scale of the operations is indicated in one of Cortez’ letters, where he speaks of using in this kind of fighting 150,000 warriors. Under these conditions, where each day ground for the next stage of occupation of the town was secured, the great market-place was taken. Finally the Aztecs were confined to an eighth part of their capital; there was no bread to be had; nothing but fetid water to drink; and a diminishing supply of defensive weapons. Cortez himself reports that the Aztecs stood on the housetops, covering themselves with their cloaks but without weapons. The streets and the houses were filled with dead bodies. On the 13th of August the signal for the final attack was given. Crowded together, without arrows or even stones and sticks to defend themselves, the Aztecs were mowed down by the Spanish gunfire. It was a disappointment to Cortez to have to use such extreme measures; largely, it appears from his own words, because there would be no spoil to be taken. Most of the houses had been destroyed, and the people threw their wealth into the lake before they perished.