Note 315 — Chapter XIII · ENTRY INTO TLASCALA. September, 1519.

He begins to suspect that their object may also have been to spy. Cortés was suffering from fever at this time, and one night he took pills, a course which among the Spaniards involved the strictest care and seclusion from affairs. Early in the morning three large bodies of Indians appeared, and regardless of his pills Cortés headed the troops, fighting all day. The following morning, strange to say, the medicine operated as if no second day had intervened. ‘No lo cuẽto por milagro, sino por dezir lo que passo, y que Cortés era muy sufridor de trabajos y males.’ Gomara, Hist. Mex., 80. But Sandoval assumes ‘que sin duda fue milagro.’ Hist. Carlos V., i. 173. Solis applies this story to the night attack, which seems plausible, and smiles philosophically at Sandoval’s conclusion. Hist. Mex., i. 271; Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., 291; Clavigero, Storia Mess., iii. 47-8. ‘Tenia calenturas, ò tercianas.’ Bernal Diaz, Hist. Verdad., 47. Some place the story with the later capture of Tzompantzinco, where it is entirely out of place, if indeed worth recording at all, for this expedition was a voluntary project, calling for no sick men to venture out. Duran relates that, tired of being besieged, Cortés one night made a sally in different directions. One party surprised all the native leaders together and asleep, and brought them to camp. In the morning they were sent back to the army, which had awakened to find them missing. In recognition of their kind treatment the chiefs raised the siege. This is told on the authority of an eye-witness, who evidently reserved his choicest stories for Padre Duran. Hist. Ind., MS., ii. 419-20.