All I know is that for two hours I was fighting like a madman.

The foe crossed the first canal, but when all were over the bridge was sunk so deep in the mud that it could not be stirred, and three furlongs on ran a second canal deeper and wider than the first.
Over this they could not cross till it was bridged with the dead.

It seemed as though all hell had broken loose upon that narrow ridge of ground.

The sound of cannons and of arquebusses, the shrieks of agony and fear, the shouts of the Spanish soldiers, the war-cries of the Aztecs, the screams of wounded horses, the wail of women, the hiss of hurtling darts and arrows, and the dull noise of falling blows went up to heaven in one hideous hurly-burly.

Like a frightened mob of cattle the long Spanish array swayed this way and that, bellowing as it swayed.
Many rolled down the sides of the causeway to be slaughtered in the water of the lake, or borne away to sacrifice in the canoes, many were drowned in the canals, and yet more were trampled to death in the mud.
Hundreds of the Aztecs perished also, for the most part beneath the weapons of their own friends, who struck and shot not knowing on whom the blow should fall or in whose breast the arrow would find its home.
For my part I fought on with a little band of men who had gathered about me, till at last the dawn broke and showed an awful sight.