There was nearly a riot in the army, marooned in an unknown and
unfriendly land. Cortes made another speech. He pointed out the fact
that if they were successful in the expedition to the capital they would
not need the ships; if they were not, what good would the ships do them
when they were seventy leagues inland? Those who dared not take the risk
with him could still return to Cuba in the one ship that was left. "They
can tell there," he added in a tone which cut the deeper for being so
very quiet, "how they deserted their commander and their friends, and
patiently wait until we return with the spoils of the Aztecs."
An instant of breathless silence followed, then somebody shouted. A
hundred voices took up the cry,--
"To Mexico! To Mexico!"
Of the adventures, the fighting, the wonderful sights and the narrow
escapes of the march to the capital, Bernal Diaz, who was with the army,
wrote afterward in bulky volumes. On the seventh day of November, 1519,
the compact little force of Spaniards, little more than a battalion in
all, with their Indian allies from the provinces which had rebelled
against the Emperor, came in sight of the capital. The moment at which
Cortes, at the head of his followers, rode into the city of Mexico is
one of the most dramatic in all history.
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