“As the last of the great ships fell below the level of the horizon and disappeared into the bottom of the dark gulf waters, Cortés stood with his men. He had staked everything, his very life and all of theirs, on the future. He later reflected that they now had “nothing to rely on save their own hands—and the certainty that they must either win the land or die in the attempt.”18 There would be no turning back.”
―
Buddy Levy,
Conquistador: Hernan Cortes, King Montezuma, and the Last Stand of the Aztecs
