Cortéz - 'For God & Spain.'

by S. Fowler Wright

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Foreword

      Sydney wrote this 237,500 word tale of the extra-ordinary achievements of Hernándo Cortéz, after visiting Mexico whilst in California (1932) assisting with the filming of his first novel 'Deluge', in 1933 - the final chapter being written in December 1934.

      It is likely that his original interest was awakened by the turn-of-the-century discovery of the Spanish friars' eye witness accounts.

      Of the only known (carbon) copy of the manuscript pages 1-4, 708 and 816 are missing.

      As with the majority of Sydney's writing it was not intended to be commercial. It was written to tell a story that both entertained and made the reader think.

Contents

Chapter

Chapter 1

Fortune's Smile

      ... ...both for distance and storms by the little sailing vessels they were. They took in water. They waited for a friendly wind and a placid sea, that they might, at least, make a fresh start on a lengthy way.

      Quintero thought that, if he could arrive first and alone, there would be a better market for the cargo that bulged his hold. There came a night when he slipped cable, and in the morning his place was bare.

      The comrades he had left smelled the wind: they looked at the sky: they thought their anchorage good. They were soon content to be watching a storm that raged on the outer sea. Quintero struggled back with a broken mast, which was a better fate than they had thought him likely to have. They met him with oaths and gibes, but consented to wait while his ship mended her wounds.

      As they neared the Indies, he tried the same trick again, putting on a press of sail in the night, but the winds were unkind once more. They seemed to keep storms for his special bane. He was buffeted from his course with a perversity of weather the rest of the squadron did not observe, and when he sailed into San Domingo, his comrades had already cleared their cargoes and made their trade, so that he must deal with those whose purses were lean, and their warehouses well-supplied.

      Hernándo may have observed again that Fortune will refuse a too-impatient attack. She is best wooed by those who are alert to watch for her smile. But, beyond that, Quintero's doings were nothing to him. He sought Ovando, Governor here, and with powers of which a king may come short, his royal master being so remote, and with brief leisure for thoughts of his Indian realm, so long as the treasure-galleons it sent home were frequent and richly filled.

      Ovando had been absent in a distant part of the island when Hernándo arrived, but his secretary was kind, and when he returned he received his young kinsman in a liberal way, giving him a wide grant of land, and solid advice therewith, which was accepted with some demur.

      The young Cortéz had come with dreams of golden fortunes that could be won by the sword's device, in strange and difficult lands. He found strangeness enough; but he was pointed to fruitful ground, and told that it was there that his fortune lay, where rents were none, and Indian labour forced, and needed no gold to pay. The Governor gave him slaves (as they were in all but name) - sufficient to work his land; he made him Notary also for the Acua district, in recognition of the slender legal education that he could claim, which may have been more than could be shown by any other of the adventurers among whom Ovando must make his choice.

      Hernándo accepted legal office, land and advice, in his smiling way, waiting his chance of a more spirited life, and quickly finding that that to which he had come would be better than dull.

      Ovando had a lieutenant, Diego Velásquez, whose part it was to keep order in the land where the Indians, though of an indolent docile kind, had not yet learned that insurrection was no more than a futile invitation to their new masters to scourge them with heavier whips. Cortéz joined his expeditions. He gained knowledge of the conditions of Indian warfare, and confidence in the powers of Spanish weapons and tactics to overcome far more numerous native foes. Confidence in himself he could not gain, for that he had never lacked. He would have joined Nicuessa's disastrous expedition, which would have been his probable end, had not Fortune smiled upon him with an illness for which he must have given belated thanks, when he saw what it had caused him to miss.

      But when he had been eight or nine years in Hispaniola, Velásquez was appointed to command an expedition for the conquest of the neighbouring island of Cuba, and Cortéz had been quick to leave his plantation to join in that successful adventure. That was a year ago. Cortéz, at this time, was known as a man of a ready sword and a ready jest, whose constitution had proved equal to endure a climate where many died, and who had worked his plantations with judgement and energy sufficient to fill his pockets with easy gold. In the conquest of Cuba, he had been popular with the troops and approved by Velásquez, to whom he gave valiant aid. When it had been brought to subjection, and Velásquez was appointed its governor, Cortéz may have considered the secretaryship which came to himself to have been no more than his deeds deserved.

      Don Diego was a man who had come to his present power without adversity's test. He had been born to wealth, and to a high name in his own land. He had served in the European wars for nearly twenty years in posts of some importance, if not separate command, and had avoided discredit, though he had not established a shining fame.

      He had seemed a safe choice for Ovando's lieutenant, and had proved equal to the task of reducing the natives of Hispaniola to the docile labour their new rulers required. He had seemed a safe choice again as a commander of the Cuban expedition, and for its subsequent government. It was the constant difficulty of this expansion of Spanish power in a distant world that men must be found of a temper and ability that hardy ventures required, and who could yet be trusted to continue an allegiance at a later time when subordination might become hard to enforce.

      Diego Velásquez had been successful in Hispaniola and Cuba, in such wars (if they can be dignified with that word) as had been easy to win. As a governor, he had not been tested at all. He proved to be of a restlessly suspicious temperament, cautious to hesitation in all he did, not remarkable for sound judgement of others, nor oversure of himself; yet with a vanity which much extolled the importance of the position which he had gained, and his services to the Spanish Crown.

      He was reputed to be avaricious, which was not a failing to make him conspicuous among those who crowded to plunder a golden world, unless it were a vice of robust growth. It is certain that he was soon surrounded by the discontent of those to whom he had become the patron by which they lived, being the power that could allot land and apportion slaves; and it is equally sure that these men were of a most lively greed, which it would not be easy for him to sate.

      He had for lieutenant a Spanish hidalgo, Narvaez, who was no more capable than himself, or perhaps less, but with a more buoyant self-belief, which was to end in shame on a later day. Narvaez may have thought the easy subjugation of Cuba to be a greater deed than it was, and exalted himself as the active instrument of the event. But, in fact, there had been no stubbornness of resistance from men who had neither love for war nor practise in its pursuit; except only from a chief, Hatua by name, who had fled from Hispaniola before rather than bend his neck to a foreign yoke. He fought hard, and, being captured at last, Velásquez condemned him to be burned alive for the 'rebellion' of resisting the Christian power. If we call him cruel for that, which is a moderate word, we must still observe that it was no more than would have been done by most of his time and race who were of the disposition to come to places and power; and few excepting some of the priests, would have called it an evil deed. The priests were earnest to save Hatua's soul, beside which, as they were firm in belief, his body's fate was a trifling chance; but he said that if Heaven were a place to which Spaniards went, he would prefer to set off on another road.

      Cortéz looked on, seeing him burn, and if the smile left his eyes, he did not protest. He may have done more than Narvaez to bring Hatua to the stake, and Cuba to the possession of Spain, but, unlike him, he did not think them to be very noble deeds.

      That was a year ago, and Velásquez had been his friend for some further months, which would be too much to say now. The governor had come to look on him with suspicious eyes, as one who was too disposed to take the part of the malcontents in a jesting way; and now there was a difference of a more personal kind.

      Hernándo Cortéz stood in a frowning doubt on the steps on the flower-clad porch of the house he had built, but three months before, to overlook the wide grant of fertile land that was now his for his slaves to till; and as he did so, Juan Xuarez rode up, and alighted before the door.

Chapter 2

Mistress Or Wife?

      Juan Xuarez deserves such pity as is due to a weak man who is thrust by the malice of events into a position calling for strength which is not his. Yet we must allow that it was by his own will that he came to Cuba from his Granada home, unless we say that his four sisters were not merely of the same mind, but controlled him wholly in that.

      Being there, with them on his hands, it was an easy guess that there would be trouble for him. The girls were beautiful in the Spanish style. They were poor by the standards of those among whom they must make the only acquaintances that were possible here. They were of gentle birth, but of an obscurity that held them off by no more than the flimsiest fence from the plebeian crowd, in the country from which they came. They may have had dreams that they would arrive at more splendid wedlocks than would be likely at home, in a colony to which some noble and wealthy Spaniards went out (though there were far more of baser degrees), and where women of equal rank would be hard to find

      But they overlooked an essential factor in the social problem with which they dealt. The morality of the island settlement was simple and unashamed. Gentlemen of Spain took all the mistresses they required from the docile population they had subdued. It was a condescension, and if sin at all by the Church's rule, it was one of a most venial kind. Nay it might be meritorious, if it should bring these heathen women into the Church's fold, as it was almost certain to do.

      It would be a misconception to attribute this attitude to the hypocrisy of the priests, in oblivion of the hard logic from which it came. The priests were honest in their belief that they could save those whom they baptized from the horrors of endless hell. Some of them had shown the true spirit of Christ in the boldness of their protests against the oppression of the natives of these West Indian isles, and of the cruelties of which many of the invaders had been guilty in their lust for wealth without toil. They had even resisted the system of forced labour by which the whole economic structure of prosperity was sustained. They had been so loud in their protests to the Spanish court that a royal commission had been sent out with full power to decide the issues that they had raised. The commission had consisted of three friars with a chairman of legal training. Their investigation was thorough, and their sympathy with the natives beyond denial. They recommended many reforms for their protection. But they could not honestly approve the freedom for which petition had been made by the local priests, for they encountered one objection beside which all others shrank to dwarfish size. If the natives were not forced to labour on the plantations, they would not come under Christian influence. They would be saved from aching muscles at an enormous cost... ... So the Indian maiden went, happily enough as it often was, to the oppressor's bed, that she might be taught to kneel to the crucifix he revered. The Spanish official or planter was content with a mistress now, and would look for a wife of good social rank, such as his own name would deserve, or his opulence would secure, when he should return to Grenada or Castile. He had no mind to burden himself before that with a wife of humble degree.

      Juan's sisters found that they were of an immediate popularity. They were quickly and warmly wooed. But they discovered that it was as super-mistresses, not as wives, that there would be a ready market for what they were. Isabella took the best prize that the traffic showed, or what would be commonly so esteemed. She became the Governor's mistress. Catalina, the second, found that she had drawn the eyes of a younger, and much handsomer man, whom it was very easy to love. Her surrender had been from passion, and not for price, and that to one who was skilful to woo in a bold and yet tender way.

      Juan learned from a sister's lips, in words that were barbed to wound, that Catalina was heading privily for the same path that Isabella had taken a month before in an open way. He was a much-worried young man. Isabella's conduct had vexed his pride, but he had recognized it to be a matter far beyond his control. She neither required, nor would have endured interference from him. Nor could he have brought the issue, had he so desired, to a duel's test, the Governor being too high for his sword to reach.

      But this matter of Catalina was of another colour. She was not content to parade what she would have considered shame, nor yet to be kissed and left in a private way, such as (it might be hoped) would be unknown outside the doors of her own home. Having given all in one passionate hour, she asked to be paid to the same sum, or (as Cortéz would be likely to think) very much higher than that.

      Isabella was on her side . She thought that Cortéz presumed, making that which she had done herself look a cheaper thing, a family failing, rather than an individual choice. She said with indignant eloquence that Catalina was worthy in every way to be Hernándo Cortéz' wife. If he loved her, why should the event pause? It was clear that it was not she who was seeking delay. If he did not, he had done her insult indeed.

      Isabella said these things also in the Governor's ears, making it clear that she looked to him to protect her sister from being held at Hernándo's price. Velásquez spoke to his secretary thereon, doing Catalina no good, but deepening a growing breach between Cortéz and himself.

      Cortéz was not pleased that the Governor should intrude into his private affairs. He would not be likely to agree that Velásquez should expect to obtain a senorita of the Xuarez on easier terms than himself, humility not being a virtue which he cultivated to any vigorous growth. He declined to admit that there had been such intimacy with Catalina as had been implicit in the Governor's words. Velásquez replied that he had Isabella's warrant for what he said.

      "Then," Hernándo was curt to say, "she should be practised to curb her tongue." After which he left the Governor's presence with less courtesy than his position required.

      He would have preferred to continue his relations with the girl without the obligations of a permanent bond, and in a discreet way, thinking it to be a matter for himself alone, and for her. Catalina's cause was being urged by worse advocates that she should have used, which were those of her own lips, and her own tears. Hernándo might be quick to smile, but was not therefore easy to drive.

      Isabella, finding her lover unable to help, gave her brother a jibing word, which moved him less than the sight of his sister's grief. Doubly spurred, he got out his horse, and rode to Cortéz' hacienda, ten miles away.

      Cortéz, as he saw him ride up, had been half resolved to go to Catalina, and make accord at her own price, if she were not to be brought to smiles at a lighter fee. He saw Juan appear, and the intention was put aside.

      Now he came down the steps in a smiling confident way, very sure of himself, and of his ability to control the position. He might have his doubting moods, but he would always be confident and cool when the moment for action came.

      He held out a ready hand, which was taken in a more hesitant grasp. He was quick to call one who would take charge of a steaming horse. He led the way hospitably in from the sun's heat.

      Juan was not a coward. He was young, and diffident among louder men. He knew the reputation that Cortéz had, he having fought half-a-dozen duels since he had made his home on the Indian Isles, and they had left him without a scar. That only one of his opponents had died was attributed more to his own will than any boast of theirs. He had trained himself to great skill with the sword.

      Men did not give him the name of one who was of quarrelsome moods. The duels had been the choice of those who thought that he made too free where he should not have looked. All but one had had a woman for cause, as most duels would. And in that he had done no ill, nor had it in thought. But he was not quick to explain; he drew his sword in an easy way, as though a bout of such strife were a trivial thing... ...

      "I would know," Juan said, when they were seated at ease, and he could no longer defer the subject on which he had come, "when you would wed Catalina, as Isabel tells me you have a purpose to do; and to say you are one whom it will be an honour to call our kin."

      Cortéz looked at him with eyes that had ceased to smile. "The Senorita Isabella," he said, "intrudes where a man would have discretion to keep away. ... Would you cheapen your sister's price by offering her thus, before petition is made?"

      Juan was confused by a point of view which he had not considered before. But he saw that it ignored facts, and that Cortéz played with words in a skilful way.

      "That," he said shrewdly enough, "would be true, if you were a stranger to her."

      Cortéz struck straight, as his way was if a feint should fail. "What," he asked, "will you say that I am to her?"

      "You are one," Juan replied, holding his point with a timid courage which would not yield, "who was in her room for two hours during the night, having climbed the vines after you left, when the house was barred."

      Cortéz frowned, "Does she say that?"

      "It is not she - "

      "Then there is no other who should. If you will give me the name he bears, I will silence that in a quiet grave, though it be Don Diego himself."

      "It is not a man. It was Maria who watched you descend."

      "Women again! If you knew of aught that could silence them! But a brother should do more than another may."

      Juan was confused again, but he had an obstinacy that replaced wit. "It is not that which I seek, but my sister's peace."

      "Which you accuse that I too lightly regard? It is of that I will talk with her."

      The boy was silenced at least, not knowing how much that promise might prove to mean. He sought, as he said, his sister's peace, though it was jeopard of honour which had been the urgence to bring him here. He had sense to see that he would bring her no joy by violent path, though it were to Cortéz' death, or else his, which was the more probable end.

      Hernándo had leisure for thoughts which he did not like. He had implacable moods, for all the laughter that filled his eyes, but he would be generous too, at times, in a large way, so that they did not utterly lie. He had a love of justice also, which he may have learned from when he read the books of the law; he added to this a sense of what was due to himself, and also to God. He did not care overmuch for the opinions that others held, but he would consider his own deeds in a frank way, and he was annoyed if they could not be called by a knightly name.

      There was a time when he had clambered a rotten wall. He was too wise for that now. He had been sure of the vines that had exalted him to the soft warmth of a woman's arms in the night, but he was not sure that he might not be slipping here in a worse way.

      He had no will to wed; and bullied to such an end he was resolved he would never be. He looked on the fortune he had made in the last years (which would be called wealth in his own land) as no more than the foundation on which he had still to build. He had dreams at times of returning home to a great name, and to alliance to some noble house of Castile. At others, he thought he would be content to make himself strong and secure in lands that were still only dropping the first jewels from fists that were tightly clenched, but were overfull.

      "Juan," he said, after the silence of thought, "you are one whom I would not harm, and I will not cheat, either for yourself, or for Catalina, to whom I would be a friend, and perhaps something beyond. I will talk to her as I have said, and if it lead to her peace or no, well, I suppose she will be equal to tell you that.

      "But I will ask you to look at this in a fair way; and you will see that you shall put the blame on those who meddle in matters which they would do better to leave... ... For, if I wed Catalina now, what will be said? That I have done so under threats which I lacked manhood to turn aside. That will be shame to me; but will it be honour to her? It will be said on all sides... ... But I will not say that, I will say only, that if we wed, it is my honour on which she must found her pride, and I should not be untarnished in that, if it came to be said (as you may see that it will) that I have danced to the tune that Don Diego or Isabella had played. ... You should tell Isabella to hold her peace, and I may bring all to a good end on a later day."

      Juan did not know what to answer to this. As a promise it was not much. As an excuse, it might be called good or bad; but excuses were not what he had come there to get. Yet he had an instinct that more might be gained by goodwill than by the show of a naked sword.

      Seeing him to be silent, Cortéz went on: "You may say more than that. You may give her warning that Don Diego would do better to look to his own defaults than what he considers mine, or else there may soon come a day (as I think there must) when there will be a governor here with another name. He has given you a wide portion of land, and I suppose that Isabella could tell you why; and for myself, I do not complain. But have you thought how large and fertile this island is, besides the wealth of the mines? And of how much of the fairest parts he will not allot, keeping them for those who will follow us (who have had the burden and heat of the day), and we might rightly suppose that they will not be favoured thus, except they augment the wealth of him by whom they will look to be richly fed?"

      Juan rode back with the doubt which had caused Cortéz to frown transferred to his own mind. He was not exactly sure of what he had done, or whether it were little or much. He felt it to be more than he could put into easy words, the fact being that he had been overborne by a stronger and more resolute will.

      But if he had come to doubt, he had left Cortéz better content than before, for he had avoided a quarrel he did not wish, which had not been easy to do, and had asserted himself against what he regarded as insolent interference by Velásquez in his private affairs, which his official position did not excuse.

      Juan told Isabella the warning he had received, which she repeated to him for whom it was meant, putting it in a worse way than it had been said. It did not cause Velásquez to conciliate discontent, but it made the breach between him and Cortéz wider than it had been before.

      Cortéz came to see Catalina, as he had promised, and as it was his pleasure to do. If he thought to continue the intimacy he had commenced, with some whispered promise of a more legal bond at a later day, he had a disappointment to meet, for Catalina had taken counsel which she preferred from the lips of Las Casas, her own priest, by whose gentle wisdom she gave her lover her lips, but no more from that day till the Church should sanction a closer bond.

Chapter 3

Hazard Of Treason

      In the months that followed, Hernándo Cortéz showed that a bold man may be very cautious, and a cautious man very bold.

      It became known, from the Governor's own querulous words, that Cortéz was out of favour with him. Malcontents began to make a rendezvous of his house. He received them well, and the plans that he nursed in his secret mind may have looked to a time when he would sit in Don Diego's place, and the Governor be a ruined man. But the advice he gave to those who grumbled was such as might be shouted for all to hear. If they had grievances, they must seek legal redress in an orderly way. They must lay complaints before the higher power at St. Domingo. The advise seemed futile, however good. Ships did not frequently sail, nor ever without the knowledge of Velásquez, who would be sure to prevent the departure of any emissary of his foes. He was, in fact, keeping a close watch, with better spies than even Cortéz observed.

      Yet with this cautious propriety of advice, Cortéz showed himself willing to take a risk, for when suggestion was made that one might slip away in an open boat across the fifty miles of treacherous sea that divided Cuba from the more easterly isle, he was ready to venture himself, as was rightly agreed, for he was the best spokesman that discontent would be likely to find, being of good repute in Hispaniola, and standing well with the government there.

      Had he put off, and escaped the seas, he might have changed the course of the island's history, for it is certain that he was not one to take such a chance without plans having been formed in a mind that was as subtle as it was bold. But Velásquez was more widely awake than he had judged him to be. Before the night when it had been planned that the boat should leave, Hernándo Cortéz found himself a shackled prisoner in the common jail, with a charge of treason against his name.

      In the quiet hours of the night, he had to adjust his mind to a position that he had not expected to meet. He had spoken treason to none; and there was no treason in what he had purposed to do. He was lawyer enough to see that, but he also saw that if he were promptly hanged, the irregularity of what the Governor did would be no satisfaction to him. Velásquez had the power of life and death over as turbulent a band of adventurers as might be found at that day in the world's breadth. He could make his own tale, and it was unlikely that it would be closely surveyed. There may be little urged on behalf of a man who is dead, and whose friends are quiet in the fear of a kindred fate. He considered what he would do in Don Diego's place, having gone so far, and was sure that he would be speedy to use the rope. He judged Velásquez to be less resolute, perhaps more scrupulous, than himself; but even so there was a doubt in his mind that he did not like.

      While he thought, a file came through the open window, and fell at his feet. He knew that he was not without friends, but he had not expected that, and by whose hand it was thrown he would never know. He did not seize it at first, which was not his way. He liked to think first. What could he do, should he get free? Would it be better to show the file as that which he had had, but declined to use, having a conscience so clear of wrong?

      On the whole, he thought not. The doubts which had been on his mind before, became active again. When he picked up the file, he had formed a clear plan. He worked till the fetters fell. When he was free of them he had little to fear. He was but one floor from the ground, and the window was wide in a month of heat. He watched till the sentry passed, and dropped unharmed to the ground. Then he ran for the church.

      In the morning Velásquez learned what he had done, and was a wroth man. But sanctuary was a sacred thing. In the church, Cortéz was safe; but to stay there was a dull life. After a few days he ventured out at times when the pavement was quiet and bare, or seeing those with whom he was anxious to talk, for he had things to say that he wished should reach the Governor's ears. There came a time when, as he did so, men sprang upon him, and he was captive again.

      This time, he was not placed in the same jail; he was taken aboard a ship that lay in the harbour, being ready to sail for St. Domingo, where Velásquez now designed to send him in irons, to be judged by those who would not be likely to favour him.

      Having done this, Velásquez could feel that he had acted in the resolute manner that his position required. He could put the incident from his mind, and give Cortéz' estates to a more pliable man. He had no reason to fear anything that Cortéz could do, now that he would be sent back in chains, as a turbulent and dangerous man. Even if appeal should be made to the Spanish Court, he had higher friends, and could bribe if need were great, with more gold than Cortéz' family could command. But in the morning he waked with the quick coming of tropic dawn, and there was Cortéz beside his bed. He was dishevelled and drenched, having again escaped in the night, and in a boat that he could not control, so that he had been forced to swim against the current, which was not easy to overcome; but he was quiet in manner, and self-possessed.

      "You have nothing to fear from me," he was quick to say. "I have watched you for the last hour, but I was content to wait till your sleep was done... ... I have come to talk sense, for you injure me with no cause, and so may oblige me to work you injury in my own defence, which is what I am not anxious to do... ... We were friends before, and you had good service from me. If you will be friends as we were, you may have good service again."

      He was sincere in this, for he had resolved, while the file lay on the floor, that he would abandon plans that would not go as he had first meant that they should, and make peace if he could bring Velásquez to the same mind, as he thought he could.

      He asked now what his offence had been from the first, and in such a way that Velásquez was led to mention the trouble over Isabella's sister, as he had meant that he should. He replied to that, that it was his purpose to wed Catalina when he was free, as he would have done before, had it been put in a different way.

      In the end, they made peace. Cortéz was not to be a secretary again, which he did not ask, but he was to wed Catalina and settle down on his estates, to which Velásquez would add some mining rights he had not had before, and which would prove to be of a solid worth. He undertook to leave discords alone; and he kept his word.

      He settled down for the next five years to draw wealth from the land. He imported cattle, being the first man to have the foresight to do that which was costly and hard to bring to success. He married one to whom he was faithful and kind, though she proved to have little wit, and bore no children to their bond.

      So the years passed, moving on to their incredible end.

Chapter 4

The Unknown Calls

      It was something more than two years after Cortéz' reconciliation with the Cuban Governor, that a Spanish captain, Hernández de Cordova, sailed with a little squadron of three vessels for the Bahamas, on a slave-hunting quest, and he was met with such a storm as drove him headlong to unknown seas.

      It was some months later he struggled back, sailing into St. Jago with no more than half the crews he had taken out, and himself dying of wounds.

      He said he had been driven far to the west and had come to an unknown coast, where the inhabitants were fiercely hostile, and appeared to be of a more formidable kind than any whom the Spaniards had encountered before.

      Their buildings were massive and high. They did not live in huts of rushes; they quarried stone. They were richly and gaily dressed. Their ornaments (and this was the point of all) were of solid gold. Of these he brought some specimens, wrought in barbaric style, which he had bought at his life's cost. He had, in fact, encountered the northern corner of Yucatan, and had skirted its northern coast.

      Velásquez determined to know more of this golden land. He fitted out four ships, which he strongly armed. He looked round for a man to be trusted for their command, and chose his own nephew, Juan de Grijalva, on whose attachment he could depend. They left St. Jago on May 1 st., 1517.

      Three months later, one of the ships came back. Its captain, Pedro de Alvarado, brought a great treasure of jewels and gold, which had been bought with barter of scissors and glass beads. De Grijalva had sent him back to make report on the rich harvest which he had found, while he continued to explore a new and wonderful land.

      St. Jago stirred to the news like a roused hive. There were many eyes and thoughts turned to the still undiscovered west, with bold avaricious dreams.

      Don Diego Velásquez felt that the moment for fame and fortune had come. He despatched a ship homeward to Spain, sending a royal share of the gold, and a letter petitioning that he should be granted a commission for the colonising of this new, vaguely-outlined land. He despatched another, having Christoval de Olid in command, with supplies for Grijalva, and an order for the conduct of his return. He began to consider the fitting out of a larger expedition, more commensurate with the extent and wealth of the territory of which Pedro da Alvarado told, and was quickly surrounded by the clamour of those who thought themselves to be equal to its command.

      At this time, it was not the custom for such expeditions to be fitted out at a public charge, neither was Velásquez in a position of unregulated control, being circumscribed by the terms of the commission he held from the superior authority at St. Domingo, and in some ways less free than a private citizen would have been.

      But a limited authority his commission explicitly gave, with more power to veto than permit; and it was a fact that this great discovery had been made by an expedition that had sailed from St. Jago with his authority, and with his own nephew in command. It is not surprising if he considered that the fame and wealth (and extended rule, if conquests should follow in these unknown lands) which would result, should be his primary right.

      The commission he held empowered him to send out an expedition to this extent, that he could either give or refuse permission for it to sail, and, if he should give such an authority it became his duty to issue a licence defining what it could do under the authority of the Spanish King. Also he could equip it, if he would, and if he were possessed with sufficient wealth, at his private charge; but not at that of the public treasury which he controlled.

      But he was restricted, even within these bounds, by the terms of his own appointment, and was explicitly without authority to authorise the establishment of any settlement outside the limits of his Cuban territory.

      It appears that while he was naturally anxious to take full credit with the Spanish Crown for the great discovery which had been made, and to bring it into subordination to his own governorship, he lacked the will or the means (or perhaps, both) to equip an expedition at his own cost, of the size which he recognized as necessary for such an occasion.

      He had, therefore, to look round for a leader who would be likely to remain loyal to him, even when far beyond any physical control; and who must yet be one of a resolution and temper both to rule his own turbulent crews, and to confront the perils of the unknown seas and unfriendly lands with the combination of boldness and prudence which such expeditions required. Beyond that, he must also be of private wealth enough to finance such an expedition from his single purse, (which was beyond reason to expect), or else one of such character and public esteem that others would invest their substance in an expedition over the precarious profits of which they would have so distant and limited a control.

      Velásquez considered various claimants for a position which was not easy to fill from the half-piratical adventurers among whom he must make his choice. He would not have overlooked Hernándo Cortéz, but he must have weighed his name in a doubtful mind. Other possibilities must be sifted first.

      But there was one in whom there had been neither hesitation nor doubt from the moment when he had sat opposite Pedro de Alvarado at a tavern board, and listened to what he told; and that was Cortéz himself. From that hour, he showed the energy of a man who works on a sure plan to settled goal.

      He counted the gold he had, which had grown to a large sum during several industrious years. He sold all he had of valuable kind by which that sum could be swelled. He mortgaged his estate. He borrowed all that he could. He bribed those who had the Governor's trust to suggest his name.

      He interviewed men who had wealth at command, and found that his persuasions prevailed. He had gained the name of a capable, dependable man. It was recalled that he had shown both courage and diplomatic resource in the way in which he had resisted the Governor some years before, and had then extracted himself form the difficult circumstance into which he fell.

      Since his marriage, he had lived a blameless domestic life. Catalina might be of slender education, and not overburdened with wit, but she worshipped him, and he was kind and patient to her in his generous, smiling way. The priest, Las Casas, who did not like him in other ways, was a witness to the happiness that was theirs. He recorded that Cortéz said that had he wed a duchess, he could have had no fuller content.

      All these things weighed with those who must venture gold in the purchase of cargo or ships which would disappear from the harbour-mouth on a quest so dangerous and so vague.

      It became common talk that Hernándo Cortéz was planning to go, and that there was no better choice.

      It could be seen, even now, that he was in many ways an ideal leader for such a venture as this was likely to be. He had a bold, confident, smiling mien, which made dangers seem less than they were. He had a habit of legal caution in all he did which the merchants approved. He offered generous terms to those who would invest either gold or their lives, but when a bargain was made, he would have the terms drawn with scrupulous care.

      It was observed that he was minute in his enquiries as to what such an expedition might need. He was exact and detailed in all that he planned and estimated. He was one who would leave nothing to chance for which pre-thought could provide.

      Even before the Governor was aware that his own mind was resolved, men were talking of Cortéz' leadership as of a settled, evident thing. Velásquez, aware of more doubt than it might be wisdom to show, took counsel with those on whom, at this time, he most surely relied.

      They replied with Cortéz' promises in their ears, and some of his gold already in their hands, that they could not imagine a better choice. A bold man, and yet cautious in all he did. One who had been successful in war, a popular captain, whom others followed on easy feet. Yet one who would be able to rule at need in a ruthless way.

      His plantations also - were there many in the breadth of the isle that were as well-ordered, as well-equipped, as well-reputed for heavy crops? He was one who would woo success with the many-detailed care to which the fickle deity is most apt to yield.

      The day came when the Governor's seal was affixed to a commission bearing Hernándo Cortéz' name.

Chapter 5

The Test Of Faith

      Hernándo kissed his wife in a buoyant mood. He said she must expect that he would remain in St. Jago for three days if not four, when she would see him again. She was not to see him for three years (or more nearly four), when she would be near to death in another land.

      He had said no more than he meant. It was the 15 th. of November, and though he had already assembled six ships, being more than could lie at once alongside St. Jago's quay, and they had taken much cargo aboard, he did not think to be ready to sail for some weeks. He would not have an hour lost, but, even so, he thought to have Christmas at his own hearth.

      He got lightly to horse, his mind busy with many affairs of recruiting, equipment, organisation, and financial bargaining, any of which he might now omit without censure of other men, but on which success or failure might depend on a later day.

      Twenty thousand ducats were already staked on this wild venture across strange seas to an unknown land. It was an enormous sum in those times for one man to own or control.

      Velásquez had not had such a fleet to command when he had been commissioned for the conquest of Cuba: Cordova's first expedition, which had ended at Yucatan, had been of three vessels: even Grijalva had commanded no more than four.

      But Hernándo was still less than content. Six were well enough, but eight were to be preferred; and four hundred men would be much better than three.

      But he would not delay, even for the advantage of greater strength. Expenses were heavy while the ships were moored, and men idled, along the quay. He would bustle all, and sail early in the New Year. There would be flourish of trumpets then, and half of Cuba would see them sail.

      When he reached the city, he put up at the tavern of the True Cross, where he transacted his affairs, so that, in these days, it had become like a private hostel for him, and those nearest to his designs.

      On the third morning, Velásquez's secretary, Andres de Duero, called upon him and requested a private interview, as their personal friendship and Duero's office made it natural for him to do.

      Duero was a man of peace, though he wore a sword, as did all of rank in those days. He was in dark blue velvet, richly but soberly clad. He was discreet and frugal of speech, and if the Governor gave him trust, it was a confidence which he had had no cause to regret.

      It is said (but unproved) that de Duero, like the treasurer de Lares (perhaps a more wily man) had taken Hernándo's gold; but, if that were so he may yet have been sure, in an honest mind, that the best Captain-Commander had been chosen that the island contained; and his own stake in the venture had not been small.

      He found Cortéz surrounded by many who came and went in a busy way, but he was not slow to put them aside, and take de Duero into his private room. He called for wine, and asked what he might do, either for His Excellency or his friend.

      "His Excellency," de Duero said, "has sent me to let you know that he has twenty bullocks that he can spare you from his own herd to provision the fleet. You are to have them at your own price."

      Cortéz knew the secretary as one whom he had good reason to trust, and who had the reputation of a discreet man, but he was careful to meet this with an expressionless face.

      Everyone on the island knew how the Governor sold his stock. It was always 'at your own price', and he would be riding for his own fall who did not overvalue that which he was directed to buy.

      "You are more expert in such values," he answered smoothly, "than I can be. You will thank His Excellency for so gracious a thought, and put on them such price as will match their worth."

      Andres smiled slightly. "You were ever discreet, as few are who are as bold as we know you to be; which is why I am in your venture with every ducat that I can spare, or beyond that."

      He became silent, but looked as though he had more to say, and Hernándo waited, with a caution as great as his.

      At length, the secretary asked: "If I should speak as a friend, would you give me a friend's reply?"

      Cortéz said: "Do I not know whom I can trust?" His eyes smiled. "Or would you call me a fool?"

      "Well, it is no more than this: Do you know why His Excellency should wish you ill?"

      "I can answer that with neither guile nor reserve. He has no reason at all but a fool's word."

      "And what word was that?"

      "It was two days ago, when I rode in, and waited upon him, as it is my first duty to do. He was desirous of inspecting the ships, and we walked together in this direction. On the way, we saw his fool in the street, and the rogue cried out, from the other side of the way, that he who sends such a captain to hunt may come to a day when he will be hunting him.

      "I said, hastily, that he should be whipped for so lewd a word, to which His Excellency did not respond, for a fool's license must leave him free.

      "There is nothing other than that. But he was cool thereafter, who had not been of embracing mood from our first word."

      "Well, be that as it may, if you will take the quiet word of a friend, you will be wary of speech and speedy to leave the quay."

      "I thank that which is kindly said. But can I make more haste than I do? I must be well furnished for that in which I am resolved that I shall not fail... ... And what have I to doubt or dread? Is it to be a knife in the dark?. ... I have commission signed; and its wording is all I would."

      The secretary did not deny that, for he had drawn it himself, with good feeling in what he did. But he said, as one merely stating a fact: "A commission may be revoked."

      This remark was met by an instant's uncomprehending or incredulous stare, which turned to one of black wrath; and more of fear than Hernándo's eyes may have shown to any until that hour.

      Beyond the wrecking of all his hopes, the revocation of his commission now would be utter financial ruin to him.

      It would be impossible to put things back as they were. It would be injustice, gross and intolerable, to cancel his authority now.

      And it would be without justification of any kind!

      Yet - if it were done? Would he have redress that would be of any avail?

      He thought that he could read the Governor's mind like an open book. Jealousy of the success that he would be likely to have had grown as he added ship to ship, and the potentiality of the expedition increased: jealousy of his efficiency, of his popularity - of all that justified his selection, and should have proved to be to the Governor's praise.

      It was the jealousy of a smaller man, who might see logical reason to fear that, while the failure of the expedition would be detriment both to his reputation and purse, its success in a far land, in these insecure times, might take Cortéz beyond his credit or his control. Commissions could not be revoked only in St. Jago: they could be revoked in Madrid.

      But while Hernándo thought thus, his face had regained its expression of sanguine energy and resolve. He said lightly: "You have been to me as a friend, which I shall be very slow to forget, though we may see more than the balance weighs. His Excellency will ever have moody hours. ... Yet I will assemble no more. I will be content with the ships I have."

      Andres said: "It is a most prudent resolve." He turned the conversation in other ways.

      After a short time he rose, saying that he must not keep the Captain-General from more urgent affairs. They parted cordially, and the secretary, walking away, and seeing the ships which were no more than half loaded as yet, and which would scarcely be ready to put to sea for some weeks at the shortest count, had more than a doubt of whose flag they would fly when that day should be.

      Hernándo, being alone, unlocked a chest in which were his private concerns, and took out the commission on which all his hopes must depend. He studied it with care, and a lawyer's mind, which it would always be his fortune to have.

      It required him first to seek Grijalva, and to make consort with him. Second, to probe a tale which Cordova had heard on his first landing in Yucatan, that six Spaniards, supposed to be survivors of a previous disaster, were in captivity there; and to buy their freedom if that might be. Third, and central of all, he was to open trade with the people of Yucatan, doing them nothing of fraud or harm, but acquainting them both of the gracious clemency of the Spanish Crown, and of its invincible might. He was to advise them of the expediency of sending presents to a monarch of such potency and goodwill - presents of gold, and precious stones, of little value to them, but which he would be gracious to accept as evidence of their regard. And he was to bear in mind the importance of saving heathen lives from the flames of a waiting hell.

      He was also to survey the coast, and gather information of the civilisation, customs and resources of the new land, seeking ever the glory of God and Spain.

      There was no instruction to establish settlements, of which Cortéz had no cause for complaint, for he knew that to be beyond the Governor's authority. He must act on his own, if he would do that and be condemned or justified by the event.

      Actually, such authority was being conferred on Velásquez at the time, but St. Jago was not yet aware of what was being done in Madrid.

      Finally, and of a potential importance difficult to assess, it was endorsed by the Governor of Hispaniola, by whom the appointment was thereby approved.

      Cortéz put back the parchment, with a mind resolved on that which he had been debating before.

      He did what he could during the day to advance the loading of the ships, but only so far as might be without his secret purpose being disclosed.

      When night came, he summoned his principal officers, and told them that he had resolved to sail without a moment's delay. Much that was unsaid must have been easy to guess, unless they were duller than those of such positions should be.

      When he was roused to face a critical hour, there were few who could be more persuasive than he.

      There was none making objection now: none who took the tale to where it must have been ruin for him.

      Velásquez slept, and there was bustle along the quay, and in the streets of the town.

      Should they sail without meat? Cortéz knocked up the chief butcher, who controlled the abattoir which provided for the needs of the town. He would take all he had, not counting the cost. The man was dubious about that. Should all the townsmen go short on the next day?

      Cortéz had a heavy chain of gold round his neck. He threw it down, and there was no answer to that. The meat was paid for a dozen times.

      Before dawn, the crews were aboard. Hawsers were loosed, and ships were warped clear of the quay.

      It was no later than sunrise when the tale of their movement was brought to the Governor, who leapt from his bed, very actively for his weight, for he was unwieldy now, and would become grossly fat as the years passed.

      He got to horseback in haste, and galloped to the quay at such a pace as he had not tried for five years, or perhaps ten.

      He saw Cortéz on the deck of a ship that lay within hailing distance, its sails half-dropped from the yards, but still riding on a bower-anchor, which the capstan was manned to raise.

      The other ships were moving. Two were clear of the bay.

      Cortéz waved in greeting, before the Governor had found words, or perhaps breath. He shouted that there was a fair wind, which he could not miss.

      So it might be, when they should be clear of the lands. It was fair in another way, that it brought the words of Cortéz clearly across the water, while those of Velásquez, less coherent in themselves, were blown away, and Cortéz shouted with real truth, and with feigned regret, that he could not hear.

      Then the anchor rose, the sails filled, and the ship made a tack for the harbour mouth.

Chapter 6

Gathering Strength

      It had not been Hernándo's true reason for setting out, but it had been a true word that the wind was fair.

      It bore his armada fifteen leagues along Cuba's coast. So he reached Macaca, which was a small settlement, but having some farms that belonged to the Spanish Crown.

      Here he helped himself to as much meat as he could usefully carry away. He made no payment for this, but - always careful in his accounts - he valued the beasts at a fair price, and booked it to the credit of the Spanish King.

      He sailed on to Trinidad, and went boldly ashore. Velásquez had calculated that he must make harbour there, and had despatched a letter to Verdugo, its commander, requiring him to take Cortéz into custody, and to send him back as a prisoner to St. Jago, he having been deposed from his command.

      But this letter had not arrived.

      Cortéz showed Verdugo his commission. He received permission not only to purchase stores, but to set up his standard on the shore, inviting recruits; and here fortune became his friend.

      There were scores of men in the town who had taken part in Grijalva's expedition, and been disbanded by him. They included several of the best officers that Grijalva had had. They were eager to join this new venture, and Cortéz was generous in the offers he made to them.

      Soon he had added more than a hundred men to his little fleet, including some of the noblest and most influential residents in the Trinidad settlement. He had gained in numbers and prestige; and he now had officers who could give him valuable accounts of what had happened before.

      When Velásquez's letter arrived, the commander consulted with his subordinates, including those who were joining the expedition, and they decided that the arrest of Cortéz was not only beyond their power (and perhaps their will), but that any such attempt would lead to the shedding of blood, which would be most probably theirs. He replied that Velásquez had required him to do something beyond his power.

      And meanwhile the six ships had become seven.

      For there had come a day when a Spanish gentleman adventurer, Senor Sedeno, sat in Hernándo's cabin in a state of anger for which he had cause enough, as he was not timid to say.

      He had sailed from Spain, bringing a cargo of wheat in his own ship, for which he expected to get a good price in the New World, where wheat was scarcer than gold.

      What he had come to was an armed caraval flying the standard of Spain, and a private flag which he had not known, which had required him, by the argument of the cannons mouth, to surrender cargo and ship.

      He had insufficient force to resist, and he was brought to Cortéz in a confused mood of anger, wonder, and fear.

      He said: "I did not think to be treated with violence under our country's flag. Are you pirates or loyal men?"

      "The fact is," Cortéz replied, in his friendliest tone, "that I need the wheat. I have men to feed."

      "So it may be. But I must still ask by what right you make violent spoil of one who should expect protection from those who fly the holy colours of Spain."

      "It is by the right of my armada of ships, that have many guns, and crews that are trained for war . ... But I would do you no wrong. I will buy ship and cargo at prices of which you will not complain. And when that is done, I will ask you to come with me to where gold can be lightly won."

      In the end, he talked Sedeno round to a willing mind. They agreed a price, and Cortéz signed a bill of exchange by which payment must be made on a later day, and Sedeno agreed to join the expedition. The six ships had become seven, and all been done at the last in a legal way.

      So the six ships became seven and the three hundred men became more than four, and much had been added (besides the cargo of wheat) to weapons and stores from the resources of Trinidad and the surrounding country.

      Cortéz begged or borrowed, bargained or bought.

      Much was secured by the sale of shares in ultimate profits, if such there should ever be. Men gambled on the hope of a great gain, as they are ever willing to do.

      But Cortéz was not content. He decided to sail round the island to Havana, and continue recruiting. He chose one of Grijalva's lieutenants, Pedro de Alvarado, to march across the island and meet him there, taking a small party of such men as would talk in the right way, and so obtain recruits who would not otherwise have been reached.

      The choice of Alvarado showed Cortéz' appreciation of the qualities of those who served him. Able, handsome, sanguine, loyal, unscrupulous, recklessly brave, he had the aspect of the successful adventurer. He could make men believe, even when he spoke boastful words. He was to do much, and go far, at the side of a greater man.

      When his party reached Havana, it had been joined by those who would do good service in future days.

      At Havana Cortéz displayed his standard again. He was active in all he did, but showed no haste to sail till he had obtained the last persuadable recruit, the last item of the munitions and other stores which might be of use in a hostile land.

      Not that he proposed war. He was on a mission of peaceful trading. But he would be prepared for the worst that might be encountered in a land that was great and strange. He had vague dreams, of which it was too early to speak.

      He found that supplies of cotton were available and he had the coats of all his men quilted thickly, so that they would be protected from arrows, by which many Spanish lives had been lost in the New World.

      And while this was being done he landed not only the small arms, but the heavy artillery, and had them cleaned and repaired.

      He raised his armada to eleven ships, and though some were small - there was a sloop among them, which could hardly be dignified by the name of ship - it was the largest fleet which had assembled in Western seas under the standard of Spain. And to each vessel, large or small, he allocated its share of soldiers, each with a separate commander, to be drilled into a trained unit while the fleet delayed.

      There were more letters from the Governor while these preparations went on.

      The Commander, Don Barba, had one. He was to arrest Cortéz and seize his ships.

      He replied temperately that it was an impracticable request. He said, also, with plain politeness, that it appeared to him to be a foolish idea. Cortéz was a good man for the job, and he was sure that he would be loyal to Velásquez, if the Governor would treat him in a different way.

      Cortéz also had a letter, in which Velásquez fatuously suggested that he should delay his departure until a personal interview could be arranged, which was acknowledged in courteous words, and with assurances of devotion to the Governor's interests, as to the sincerity of which we may think as we will, and observe what the course of events would be.

      On the 10 th. of February, 1519, the fleet moved to its final point of departure, St. Antonio's Cape. They were tiny vessels by any standard. That of Cortéz, the largest, was of no more than a hundred tons. There were two other square - rigged ships of seventy or eighty tons, and the other small craft were of sundry sorts - caravals and open - decked brigantines, and a one - masted sloop.

      No one appears to have made complaint of the loads they bore, but the careful records of their commander show that they would have had no use for a Plimsoll line.

      In addition to huge quantities of provisions, weapons, ammunition, trading stores, and miscellaneous requisites, they had on board:

Crossbow men . . . 32
Arquebusiers . . . . .13
Other Soldiers . . .508
Sailors . . . . . . . . .110
Indians, about . . . 200
Heavy guns . . . . . .10
Falconets . . . . . . . . .4
Horses . . . . . . . . . .16

      The horses should not really come last, for they had been brought from Europe at heavy cost in small wind - tossed vessels; and, for the service to which they were destined now, each of them would prove to be of more value than many men.

      The weight of cargo and men might be much for the ships to bear, but from another angle they were so feeble and few that the mission on which they sailed might seem to be a fitting cause for the laughter of sober men.

      Had it been for no more than a trading venture in a strange land, with barter on open sands, it would have been well enough, or might even be said to have been prepared with more elaboration than the occasion required. But that Cortéz had larger dreams became apparent when he arrayed all those who had enlisted under his banner, before they embarked for the unknown land, and addressed them with the eloquence which his father would have preferred him to have used in the law-courts of Spain.

      "Comrades," he said, "we are about to start on such a voyage as will give us fame till the setting of the last sun that this earth shall know." (The marvel was that he spoke no more than the truth when he said that). "Men do not come to such heights by ways of safety and ease. I offer you danger, and wounds, and death. I offer hardship and toil.

      "If there be any here for whom that be too hard a bargain to make, let him speak now. He may go without a reproaching word, and with return of any stakes he may have entrusted to me. But if he be silent now, let him be so also in later days, for I have told him my purpose without disguise.

      "I would have you do all for the glory of God and Spain; but if there be any here who is incited by lust of gold, let him be true to me, and he shall not lack. I will give him riches beyond his dreams. For we go where gold is like the pebbles of the sea shore. Men will give us that which is of little value to them, and, if you be guided by me, they may do it with goodwill, and the extending of peaceful hands. And for their gold we will give them a better thing, being the gospel of Christ, and salvation from the hell to which they are otherwise doomed.

      We are few in numbers, but if we have resolute minds, knowing that no infidels can prevail against God and Spain, we shall bring all to so fair an end as shall be to Their glory, which we shall be blessed to share."

      The short speech was answered by deepening cheers. They had a leader whom they knew to be courageous, confident, and yet very cautious in all he did. He was one whom they had good reason to trust, and by his spirit he made them one.

      It was the 18 th. of February 1519, when the little fleet weighed anchor to cross the channel of Yucatan.

Chapter 7

Cozumel

      It is not easy to hold a fleet of small sailing vessels together on stormy seas in the dark hours.

      Cortéz had a simple plan, probably the best there could have been, but it went wrong.

      He hung a lantern at his own stern, and gave orders that no other lights should be shown during the night. They must follow, or search for him. There would be no wandering after one which was going astray, and so splitting the fleet.

      Beyond that, they were all to meet at the island of Cozumel on the coast of Yucatan, where Grijalva had landed before.

      It was well that they had that destination agreed, for nine of the eleven lost touch with the guiding beacon, when they were struck by storm in the night. One by one, they arrived at the rendezvous, with leaking hulls, or damage of masts and spars. But it was several days before the commander's vessel appeared, in company with the other missing ship, which had been disabled in the storm. It was explained that Cortéz had observed its distress, and remained beside it till repairs had enabled it to proceed.

      He was not less popular for that, nor for the days of doubt which had taught men to realise how great a loss his absence would be, but he quickly heard of that which would test his fitness to lead in another way.

      Alvarado, whom he had trusted to lead the recruiting party to Havana, and who had the advantage of having been in Grijalva's expedition, was one of the best captains he had.

      But he had disobeyed orders during that leaderless week in a characteristic way.

      He had landed, and plundered some public buildings, frightening the defenceless native population, so that they fled into the interior. He had brought two captives aboard.

      Cortéz had these men brought before him. For intercourse with those with whom he sought to traffic, he had to rely upon a native of Yucatan who had been brought back by Grijalva, either as a guest or slave, and had been taught some Spanish in Cuba during the intervening months. By this medium, Cortéz explained that the violence of Alvarado had been without his authority and against his will. He gave generous presents, as a convincing proof of his sincerity.

      This policy succeeded. The fugitives returned, and a brisk barter began. Each party gave that which they regarded as of little value, for that which they more highly esteemed, and were well content.

      But Cortéz did more than that. He gave Alvarado scathing rebuke in a public way. If any thought he could do his own will under his present leader, he had much to learn.

      Next, he turned his thoughts to the tale of Spanish prisoners upon the opposite mainland.

      He sent two brigantines to that coast, with letters for the captives, if such there were, and an offer of rich reward for their release. The ships were to remain as long as eight days, if necessary; and the time of their absence to be used in exploring the island.

      Cortéz found that its inhabitants were few, its resources poor. But there were ancient, substantial buildings, and other evidences that greater days had gone by.

      So they had. It was destined to be entirely uninhabited in the next century, and choked by growth of jungle from shore to shore.

      Cortéz had more than one object in what he did, the glory of God not being least in his mind. But he had with him two missionary priests who had one object alone - the conversion of heathen men. Their belief, however crude, was sincere and simple: a man baptized was a recruit for the ranks of Christ. He was one less to be consigned to the endless torture of hell.

      With such a creed, any method, any violence, could be excused, if it should bring men to the font.

      Cortéz did not doubt that this efficacy of baptism was literal truth, and gave the priests his support. He would not use violence for trading gain, or for the conquest of peaceful men. God forbid that he should do such a wrong! But he would use violence to save their souls.

      During the ten days the brigantines were away, he challenged the loyalty of the inhabitants of Cozumel to their peculiar gods, by rolling their symbols and images in the dust.

      The outraged natives had no heart to resist, but they pleaded with tearful eyes.

      The priests replied through the interpreter. Let them see what their gods would do, which would be nothing at all.

      So it proved. In the end, the bewildered people were baptised into a faith of which the interpreter could not have told them much, or in very luminous words.

      The bold course had been a success. There had been a saving of many souls. Give the glory to God!

      Having spent their eight days on the Yucatan coast, the brigantines returned. Their captain, a young Spaniard of noble family, Diego de Ordaz, reported that he had heard vague tales of men who were said to be enslaved. The letters which had been written to them had been sent inland by Indian hands. He had offered rewards, far beyond what their slave-value was likely to be; but there had been no response.

      Cortéz had done all he could, at the cost of ten days' delay, and the gain of some men baptised. He could wait no more. He sailed northward, skirting the Yucatan coast.

      Then he was stayed by the fact that one of his ships reported a leak that its pumps could not control. It had been strained by the recent storm, and must have repair.

      This meant more delay. Cortéz would not abandon one of his ships. He decided that it must be careened, and that this could be more safely done at Cozumel than on a mainland he did not know.

      He put back.

      It seemed a matter of minor importance, though it meant some delay.

      In fact, it was a leak that changed the history of the New World.

Chapter 8

Jeronimo

      The fleet was anchored at Cozumel again when a canoe came rapidly over the water from the Yucatan coast. There were four men who paddled on either side, and there was one who sat in the stern, doing nothing.

      The canoe came to the side of Cortéz' ship, probably because it was the largest, and the sailors crowded to look down upon it.

      The man in the stern rose. He had an Indian look, and was clothed (or unclothed) in the Indian mode. He called out, in Castilian, ill-pronounced: "Am I indeed among Christian men?"

      One of the paddlers spoke to him, and he added: "He says there is a price fixed, at which I am sold to you."

      Cortéz looked down from the stern deck. He ordered that the interpreter should be called. He learned that this man was one of the shipwrecked six, and he ordered that the price should be paid in measure of bells and beads, and that the man should be brought to him. He said: "He is not a beast to be shown. I will see him in my cabin, and only he."

      When the man was brought, he bent at Cortéz' feet, his hand touching first the ground and then his own head, which was the Indian salutation.

      Cortéz pulled him to his feet. He said: "You are now among Christian men." He unbuttoned his own cloak, and cast it round the shoulders of one who was nearly naked and unconcerned.

      He asked: "What is your name?"

      "Jeronimo de Aguilar."

      "Where are the rest of the six?"

      "The six?" The man looked vaguely puzzled, and then intelligence came to his eyes.

      "Some of us," he said, "died in the boat. We had been long adrift. Some were... ... Killed. I was not ready for the right day. Not for the feast. We took a long time to fatten. We had been very thin... ... That was how I had time to escape. A woman helped me to get away."

      He stopped, as though there were no more to be said. Cortéz wondered what he had been eight years ago. He must have been young. He did not look like a seamen. He had a thin ascetic face.

      He asked: "What were you before this happened?"

      "I was a priest - in my second year."

      "And after you got away?"

      "I went inland. Hiding. Some people were kind. Then I got caught when I was asleep. I was bought by a rich man. A cacique. He kept me alive. But he was hard. Then he found I was useful, and didn't lie. After that he was kind.

      "Then he told me I must marry. There was trouble about that."

      "Why trouble?"

      "I couldn't. I am a priest. There were the vows."

      "But why trouble?"

      "He wouldn't understand. He thought I was obstinate not to obey. He didn't believe in my vows. He used to put girls in my bed."

      "But you kept your vows?"

      "Of course. ... When he understood, he was kind again. He gave me charge of his house, and all his wives. ... He didn't want me to come to you, but he gave way after a time. He was a good man."

      Cortéz thought: "This man will be a great gain to me. He knows the people of these parts. He knows their customs. Best of all, he will know their language, as he knows ours. He will be a better interpreter than an Indian who does not understand half I say."

      He ordered that Jeronimo should be put into a cabin near to his own, and, in the following days, they talked much.

      So it was that he heard of a continent on which a civilisation had developed, great and strange: Of a dominant race, the Aztecs, hated and feared by other nations that they had conquered, to reach whose territory he must sail much further along the coast. He was on the doorstep of a rich and wonderful land, inhabited by millions of men alien in customs and faith. Could he make friendship with them?

      Could he be more than a jest as their possible foe?

      His mind leapt forward to vague impossible dreams. He became eager to reach the far land which was only hearsay, even to this man who could tell so much.

      But this eagerness did not overcome his self-control: his cautious thoroughness of approach.

      The next item of his programme had been to put in at the mouth of the Tabasco river, where Grijalva had found a friendly reception, and most lucrative trade. If the Tabascans had been friendly to Spaniards before, they would be so now. There was reason in that.

      He sailed northward along the coast till it fell away, and he must steer due west to keep it in sight on his left hand.

      Richly wooded, too distant for visible signs of life, if any there were, he watched it till he came to the river mouth that he sought, and entered, and anchored there.

Chapter 9

Skirmish

      The fleet anchored at the river mouth, and waited for traders who did not come.

      Grijalva had had a friendly reception from Tabascans whom he had left in the same mood. He had done lucrative trade. What should be different now?

      Something was. Cortéz must either find it out, or sail blindly away. He could not take his ships up the river. There was so much silt at its mouth that even the little sloop drew too much water for that. He ordered that boats should be launched. These were many and large, which is a measure of prudence in lonely seas.

      They were soon loaded with men and arms, and with goods for trade. They pulled up the stream.

      It was wide and shallow. Mangroves grew thickly on either side, and the water spread among their roots.

      As the boats pulled up the centre of the stream dark forms were seen moving among the trees: forms of men who were plainly observing them, though keeping more than a bow-shot away.

      After a time they came to where a large island divided the river, and, above that there was a stretch of open land on the right bank, where many Tabascans were assembled, who greeted them with defiant shouts, and the bending of bows.

      Cortéz summoned the boat in which was the Indian interpreter. "Go forward," he said, "to the bank. They will not think that we have any hostile aim when we advance one boat alone. Tell them that we come in peace. And ask why they meet us in this way, who had been friendly before."

      This was done, and the Tabascans, while maintaining their hostile front, made no overt attack on the boat. When it was within hailing distance, the Indian interpreter talked with them for some time.

      No one could tell what was really said. It must remain no more than a guess.

      He returned to Cortéz to report that they said that they had been blamed by the whole country for the friendly reception they had given Grijalva, and he must choose between destruction and swift retreat.

      That may have been all that was said: but next day he was gone. He left his Christian clothes as evidence that he had abandoned what he may have judged to be a hopeless cause, for he had learned by then that Cortéz would not retreat.

      It was well indeed that Jeronimo was there, to take his place, and with far better qualifications than he.

      Cortéz decided to do nothing till the next day. The island in mid-river was large enough to serve for a camping-ground for the night.

      Landed there, he called around him for consultation those of his officers who had been with Grijalva's expedition.

      They agreed that the town of Tabasco was not more than a few miles up the river. Perhaps five. It was a town of considerable size. Alonso de Avila said that there was a road from the town to the river mouth. They had passed a byroad that came from it to the river bank half a mile below. He had himself been to the town. Could he find the road again? Yes, he could do that.

      Cortéz said: "It is a great hazard to land; and if we are beaten here we lose all. But we do if we go back to the ships, for the news would spread, and we should be held in contempt."

      He said to Avila: "I will give you a hundred men. You will go down the stream when the dawn is near, and land by the road you know.

      "We will land here, on the right bank, and if they join battle with us, you may take them upon the rear."

      It seemed a good plan, for the land was not inhabited there, being mangroves and swamp. A quick march might secure a decisive surprise.

      So it was done. Avila was gone before dawn, and, as the light grew, Cortéz ordered the rest of the men to the boats.

      They saw that more Indians had arrived during the night. They were thick on both banks, which were also lined with canoes, crowded with men.

      Cortéz made one more effort for peace. He approached the bank with all his remaining boats, prepared to force a landing if it should be in his power, but he first told Jeronimo to make a last declaration of his desire for peace, and to threaten what he would otherwise do.

      If the Tabascans understood what was said, it had no effect. Arrows began to fly. The next moment the boats clashed with the canoes, which had neither advanced nor fled.

      There was a confused turmoil of strife, fierce and short. Some of the canoes overturned. The Spaniards leapt from their boats, seeking to wade to the bank. Men fought waist-deep in the muddy stream.

      Cortéz, with the advantage of body-armour, which few had, was of the first who won to the bank. His sword was active for the aid of others, as well as for his own defence. But he was caught in the mud. He lost a sandal. He must go on with a bare foot. There was a shout among the Tabascans that he was the leader. If they could get him down -. He became the centre of crowding foes.

      Loyal comrades were also there. A flurry of bitter strife saw the Indians thrust somewhat back. With firm ground beneath them, some of the arquebusiers got their clumsy weapons to fire. It was a sound of terror, never heard before in that land.

      Crossbow bolts were also beginning to fly. The quilted coats of the Spaniards were some defence against the Indians arrows; but the Indians had no protection that would resist the force of a crossbow bolt.

      They had made a wooden barrier across the way to the town. They retired to that. But the Spaniards were too closely upon their heels for them to rally resistance there.

      They went over the barrier together in a confused riot of strife - and then Avila's men were at the Indian rear, and they broke and fled.

      Cortéz led the way to an empty town.

Chapter 10

Battle

      The town was a small matter, compared with those the Spaniards were to see in the coming days, but it was enough to show them that the new continent was a civilised land. There were mud huts there, but there were also houses of stone. As for their contents, they were mostly gone. The Indians had stripped the place, in anticipation that it might not be held. There was some food, but little else. Gold, in particular, had been taken away.

      Cortéz did not return to the boats. He did not suppose that the morning skirmish was more than a curtain-raiser for greater things; but he saw that he must stand his ground.

      None of his men was dead, but there were numerous wounds. He sent those with the worst injuries back to the ships, and the boats that took them brought every whole man that could be spared from the crews. They brought the horses also, stiff from long confinement, but quick to regain mobility on the welcome land.

      They brought up some of the cannon also. It was a busy day, during which they were not molested at all.

      But Cortéz was never one to await his foes. He sent out two parties to ascertain in what force and how near the Indians might be.

      Alvarado led one, and encountered nothing.

      Francisco de Lujo led the other, and had a different experience. He became surrounded by Indians, in such force that he felt it hopeless to fight his way back. He took refuge in a large stone barn, where he was closely besieged.

      Fortunately for him, his enemies' cries of triumph came to Alvarado's ears. If Alvarado had found himself at the gates of hell, he would have challenged the devil there. He was not one to count numbers at such a need. He was swift to come to his comrade's aid. Together, they fought their way back, to be met midway by Cortéz, coming to their relief.

      It was a warning of what there was soon to be.

      They had taken a few prisoners at the last, and these talked to Jeronimo freely enough. He said the whole country was in arms. Tomorrow they would be attacked with a great force.

      Cortéz said: "Do they think that? They will find that they are wrong. We shall attack them."

      If that decision were bold, it was prudent too.

      It showed confidence, on which much might depend.

      Besides that, the Indian strength might increase, but that of Cortéz would not. He had his horses. He had his guns. He had every man that the ships could spare. He said: "They shall not come to us in these streets. We march out at dawn."

      There was an engineer, Mesa, among the soldiers, who had had experience in the Italian wars, to whom he gave command of the artillery. He gave a general command of the infantry to Diego de Ordaz, taking the little force of cavalry under his own direction, for his favourite operation of an attack on the rear of his foes.

      He chose fifteen with care, captains and cavaliers who had armour of plate and were accustomed to ride, and to use of the knightly lance.

      They rode out at the first hint of dawn, intending to make a wide detour, and find the rear of their thronging foes.

      Alvarado and Avila were among these. And there were Velásquez de Leon, Olid, Sandoval, Montejo - names that would become famous in days to be.

      The horsemen rode away, and de Ordaz led out his little army, to advance over three miles of difficult ground - maize-fields, intersected with ditches for irrigation, brimming with water, through which men must splash and flounder, while the guns were hauled, one after one, along a narrow causeway that ran through the fields.

      They came to an open plain, and to sight of a great army of Indians, which they would afterwards say to have consisted of five divisions, each of eight thousand men, which we may believe if we will. It was certainly a great host.

      But the nearly-naked bodies of the Indians had no protection, and their offensive weapons were arrows and stones, fishbone lances, and swords of brittle kind, that would be blunted by many blows.

      Now the Spaniards tried to deploy upon open ground, and were met by volleys of arrows that caused many wounds, in spite of the quilted coats for which Cortéz had delayed his ships in Havana Bay. But for his prudence in that, his hopes must have ended in the next hour.

      For there was an hour during which the battle swayed. There was no sign of the sixteen cavaliers, who were to have made havoc upon that numerous rear. With hard fighting, sufficient space was made to enable the guns to be swung round, and ranged in line. Ammunition was brought up. With explosions that were new and dreadful to the New World, balls of iron or stone tore through crowded ranks, having a front which was not many paces away.

      Arquebusiers and crossbowmen got to work also, having a wide mark that they could not miss. There was fearful slaughter in crowded ranks, but they did not fly. They closed and came on.

      It seemed, as the minutes passed, that the hard-pressed line of struggling pikes, and straight-thrusting swords, must be overwhelmed, or driven back upon dyke and maize, although the dead were becoming a breastwork around their front - and then hope came, at the sound of a distant cry.

      Cortéz, with the caution of method by which his audacities were always controlled, had decided that he must make a wide detour to avoid the number of his confronting foes. He would not modify this determination when he found that the ground was so difficult that rapid progress could not be made.

      More than an hour after he had proposed to be there, he looked on the far-stretched ranks of those who were too intent upon what was going on in front to become aware of the menace upon their rear.

      Sixteen against thousands. - Cortéz had been endeavouring to visualise what would happen when they rode into so dense a throng. To be separated would be surely to die. But how should there be instant recovery of a lance that transfixed a foe?

      "Comrades," he said, "you will aim at their faces, as though they had heads alone. That is an order to be obeyed. When I cry St. Pedro! It will be a signal to charge. But keep together. We shall not be running a race. We must hold our ranks, and ride as one, till we reach our friends."

      It was good counsel, for which as it proved, there was little need.

      At the cry of "St. Pedro" the squadron charged, some taking up the same cry, and some preferring St. Jago, who was the patron of Spain. With two such saints to aid, who could doubt what the end would be?

      But, in fact, there was no resistance at all. Horses had not been seen in that land. Man and horse were regarded as one, a monstrous, murderous apparition which no man could be expected to face.

      With deafening cries of terror, the Indians broke and fled. The horsemen would not have reddened their lances but that men cannot run at a horse's pace, and that they were impeded by their own density.

      "Shall we pursue?" Diego asked, as Cortéz came to his side.

      "No. We have done enough. Let them go."

      It was a decision as wise as it was humane. There would have been no further reduction in morale from a few hundred additional deaths, nor material alteration in the number of those who had been their foes.

      And, besides, the Spanish were weary men.

      But a few prisoners had been taken, and, among them two officers of rank, as their clothing showed.

      "I will eat first," Cortéz said, "and after that I will talk to them. Treat them fairly; and let Jeronimo be here."

      When he had dined, he had the two prisoners brought before him. He looked at them with the friendly smile which would bring most men to serve his will.

      He said to Jeronimo: "Tell them they are free to go. Let them tell their countrymen that we have no quarrel with them. We came in friendship, and desire no less at this hour. But, should further violence be tried, we will slay till there be none who still lives, neither man, nor woman, nor child. Let them think well, and then say which it shall be."

      The captives went, with bewilderment and relief, and Cortéz was quick to ask what the Spanish losses had been. There were many wounded, but only two dead - two of unregarded names, though it was important to them.

      Of the Indians, estimates varied. Some said a thousand lay dead on Ceutla plain. Some said many thousands. We may have it which way we will. No one counted the slain.

      There was a deputation from the Tabascans on the next day. They desired peace. They could have that, Cortéz said, but it must be entreated by the heads of the state themselves.

      At that word, they were quick to come, bringing many gifts. Among these gifts there were twenty well-chosen girls with whom the Spaniards might do as they would (in return for baptism, of course, which outweighs all).

      This may seem to be of minor account. But it was not. It had consequences which cannot be told in a short word. He who looked for St. Pedro's aid could not complain that he had a negligent saint.

Chapter 11

Marina

      About sixteen years before the day of the Tabasco battle, and about the time when Hernándo was falling from a treacherous Medellin wall, far away, in the south-eastern corner of Mexico, a rich cacique died.

      He left a wife, and a young girl child.

      He lived in a highly civilised state, though it was outside the knowledge of Europeans, and itself knew nothing of them. According to its laws of inheritance, the widow had certain rights in the property which he left, but, at her death, the girl must inherit all.

      The widow married again. She had a son, whom she loved more dearly than the girl, as some women do. Should the boy have nothing, and she all?

      She nursed this bitter feeling as the boy grew, till she hated the girl. She began to plot ways in which she might foil the law.

      She had one plan which involved procuring the dead body of another girl, which was no more easily arranged in Mexico than elsewhere. But she had patience, and there was a day in the spring of 1519 when the chance came.

      She heard that a girl of her daughter's age was ill, and likely to die. She sought her parents secretly, and said, if their child should not recover, she would give a large sum for the dead body, if it could be delivered to her unobserved.

      The bargain was made. The girl died. The body was delivered secretly. The woman announced that her own daughter had died suddenly. The dead body was buried with the usual rites, and the boy inherited all.

      But the daughter had waked from a drugged sleep to find that she was in the hands of slave-dealers, far from her home, and being hurriedly borne to a distant land.

      The merchants, who, instead of paying for her, had been paid to take her away, carried out an evil bargain as honest men. They took her across the breadth of Southern Mexico and through Yucatan, till they were near the Atlantic coast. They sold her to a Tabascan cacique, as the ships of Cortéz appeared at the river mouth.

      She was beautiful, gently-nurtured, well-educated, intelligent. The conditions of slavery were not severe, according to the laws which prevailed before the Spaniards came. She was one who would be likely to make the best of whatever circumstance she might have to face.

      But what happened was beyond her wildest dream, or her sharpest fear.

      Almost immediately after she had been bought, her owner was required to contribute to the presentation which must be made to those who were to become friends. The slave he had just bought was naturally to be preferred for such a purpose to those who were established in his household. She found herself herded with nineteen other young women of sundry sorts who were to pass to the control of the strange and terrible white invaders, who had come with thunder and fearful beasts from the unknown sea.

      To be transformed in a single day from a life of secure luxury in an honoured home to the condition of precarious slavery, was an experience which falls to few, and which few indeed could face with the outward serenity which she had continued to show. But to pass from that condition almost instantly into the power of these white barbarians, alien in language, and religion, and in the habits of daily life, whose existence she could not have imagined the week before, was a development which might have excused her deciding that it was beyond belief - that she was in the spell of a dreadful dream.

      The twenty girls, having been assembled at the house of a chieftain some miles away, and provided with better clothing than many of them may have worn before (for should not costly gifts be presented in such a way that their value is not in doubt?) were led by foot - vehicles were not a feature of Maya civilisation - to the Spanish camp.

      The dress in which she had been sold by her mother had a collar of feather-work, very beautifully wrought, such as only noble-women in Mexico were allowed to wear.

      The merchants into whose hands she passed had produced it as evidence of her gentle birth, and it had been included in her sale, but taken from her by her new owner, as obviously unsuitable for a slave to wear.

      Now it had been returned; but the elaborate feather-work, surpassing anything which could have been procured in the markets of Europe or Asia, could mean nothing to the Spaniards, beyond the fact that it was lovely, intricate work, its brilliant iridescent colours being attractive setting to a cream-brown neck.

      She must get what satisfaction she could from the beauty of what she wore. There was little else of beauty the way she went, which was across the plain where Indian burial parties were digging trenches into which they were tumbling dead bodies too numerous to be identified in their deaths.

      The cannonballs which had bounced along the plain, mowing them down, had not been reticent in what they did.

      The girl looked on the shot-torn bodies with eyes that saddened, but did not flinch. ... They came at last to the large stone house in Tabasco which Cortéz had made his headquarters. They were herded into a room on the ground floor, while Cortéz, with the interpreter in an upper room, was interviewing those who till yesterday had been the lords of the land.

      The girls were not given seats. Should a slave tire? Some sat on the ground. This one stood, declining either to meet or avoid the glances of the cavaliers who came crowding into the room.

      There was Montejo, with penetrating eyes, but in mirthful mood. He looked less a warrior than a business man. He passed a jest to Alvarado, taller bolder, more gaily confident, at his side.

      Morrales entered alone. An old man, somewhat lamed by an ill-healed wound. Hard-featured, but one to trust, either for a fair bargain, or the thrust of a friend's sword at a time of need.

      Christoval de Olid, a red-faced, hawk-nosed man of robust strength, but somewhat bow-legged through the long years during which he had cared less for the solid ground than a horse's back, came in at the side of a younger comrade, Diego de Ordaz, lover of adventure of any kind, or strife of wits, be it war or chess, or who would turn to a merry mood with a fiddle beneath his chin.

      There also came Avila, for whom a fiddle would have no tune, but who would be cool and competent either to command in the field or to administer more peaceful affairs.

      Now he listened with restrained impatience while Ircio, vainer than he, boasted of the part he had played (well enough) when the Spaniards had been near defeat through Cortéz' delay.

      Even though they spoke in a foreign tongue, those whom they came to inspect, of whom some wept, and some giggled, some looked on the ground, and some looked up with inviting eyes, could not doubt what their fate would be.

      "Twenty female slaves?" Cortéz was saying in the room overhead. "They have been brought here on foot? Have they been refreshed?"

      He gave order that a meal should be promptly served.

      He thought that his officers would find pleasure with these. But there would be jealousies as to whose they should be. That must be handled with care. There would be those who must be placated with a smiling word of regret, such as he knew how to speak. For himself, he would not compete. There would be wisdom in that.

      But he must cast an eye on the tribute that he received. There can be wide differences in the quality of female slaves. Were they of the kind to sit at the board, or to clean the floor? - Or perhaps both?

      When the conferences ended, and the humbled chieftains of Tabasco withdrew, he went down to the lower room.

      He passed Bernal Diaz as he went in, - a young, blunt-mannered captain whose special duty - and privilege - it was to care for the horses, on which the success of the expedition would so largely depend. An illiterate man, perhaps; but thorough, efficient, of some knowledge, and one to trust. He was doubtless hoping to get one of the girls; and was one who would have to be denied, with smiling words of regret, and a future hope.

      He paused a moment, to enquire whether any of the horses had suffered hurt in the battle of the last day, and while he did so was unaware that a girl's eyes were on him with a straight glance, very different from the way in which she had looked past the other officers who had been filling the room.

      She saw a man of thirty-five years - nearly double her own age - but in whom there was no reduction in the light vigour of youth and health. He was of somewhat more than average height, slender and strong, dark of hair and eye. Alert in movement and glance. Smiling with eyes and lips as he talked to one who was plainly of lower rank than himself.

      He was strange, but not repellent, to one who had never seen a white man till the last hour, and seldom any as tall as he.

      He was dressed soberly enough, in indigo velvet, but it was of a quality she had wit to perceive, and the ostrich feathers that curled round his broad-brimmed hat, which he had adopted when he received his commission as a distinguishing sign, were strange to her, but their significance was emphasised by the fact that, among her own countrymen, feathers were the insignia of rank, which it was an offence to wear without legal right.

      As he advanced into the room, her eyes sought his, without boldness, but yet in an intimate, equal way, which he did not miss.

      "Oh," she prayed silently to the gods she knew, "if it could - if it could be he."

      He stopped short, while, for a long moment, they regarded each other, and were regarded by all around.

      Then he turned to where Jeronimo stood a few paces behind. "Tell her," he said, "that she will be conducted to my own ship; that she will have nothing to fear."

      He turned to Montejo to say: "Will you order this, that it be done with courtesy and regard?"

      Alvarado was at his side. He said, in his jesting way, but not as being free from chagrin: "You said you would have none. You should have said none but the best."

      Cortéz was short in his reply, as he would seldom be, unless in angered rebuke: "Have I said I will have any now? I have said she is not for you."

      He went on to nominate those to whom the remaining nineteen would fall. Olid asked: "Is that the order in which we choose? Or how is it to be?"

      His own name had come late.

      Cortéz knew the jealousies of those he controlled too well to fall into that trap. Was he to make one man content, and eighteen wrathful to the degree that others were esteemed to be more than they?

      He said: "Not at all. If you differ, are there not dice?"

      He went, without giving her a second glance, and became busy with other affairs.

Chapter 12

Shadow Of Power

      The landing at Tabasco had not been as disastrous as it had threatened, but it had not been evidently fortunate in its results. There had been hard fighting, and little gold. That might be the view which soldiers, and even Cortéz, would take, but Father Olmedo thought differently. The Tabascans were in a mood of subjection, and if swift action were taken might they not find themselves in the Christian fold before normal independence of mind should be resumed?

      Cortéz, though he might have other matters upon his mind, was never loth to listen when such suggestions were made. It need mean no more than a day's delay.

      The essentials of Christianity (according to Spanish Catholicism) were very briefly explained to very pliable minds. Jeronimo, having a thorough knowledge of their language, and a training for priesthood that could not be wholly forgotten, was doubtless an excellent medium for such a mission.

      The temple images were cast down. One of Virgin and Child was set up. Mass was celebrated before a vast concourse of wondering Indians, with all available pomp.

      Cortéz, as he was rowed back to the waiting fleet, could feel that he had come through the second ordeal of his adventure without discredit, and that the approval of Heaven was very sure.

      When he climbed the side of his own ship, horses and cannon, all the impediments of the invasion, and all of presents or plunder that had been collected, had been hoisted aboard, and the fleet was ready to spread its sails to the friendly wind for a further goal.

      Hour by hour, with Alvarado at his side, he leaned on the counter-rail, watching a coast along which his companion had sailed before.

      Alvarado could point out the river which Grijalva had named after himself: another, where they had done a lucrative trade: a third, where they had been horrified to find evidence, if not of cannibalism, of human sacrifices to heathen gods.

      But Cortéz was not willing to stop at any of these places. He did not wish his voyage to be a mere repetition of what Grijalva had done before. And he had stopped once, to come away with honour, but little else. He sailed on.

      The weather was pleasant. The wind fair. The scenery along which they sailed had luxuriant beauty which asserted a gracious land.

      Cortéz anchored at last, finding good shelter in the lee of the island of St. Juan de Ulna.

      He had already passed the limit of Grijalva's venture, but might have continued further along the Mexican shore, had not a large canoe almost immediately appeared from the mainland and steered for his own vessel. It contained Indians of a different aspect and dress from the Tabascans he had met before, and of an evident friendship. They brought welcome presents of fruit: gracious offerings of flowers. They had trinkets of gold, which they would gladly barter for the glass beads and other articles which were stranger to them than was the gold to European cupidity.

      Cortéz called upon Jeronimo to interpret for him, and found a difficulty he had not foreseen.

      He spoke Tabascan only, and these people conversed in another tongue. But he said there was a way by which this difficulty could be overcome. The girl whom Cortéz had brought aboard knew this and other languages of the New World. She knew the Tabascan tongue. He could translate to her, and she to the visiting Indians.

      Cortéz said: "Ask her to enquire of who they are, and of the lord of their land, whom I am anxious to meet."

      "So I will, and so, I am sure, she will do. But it will be no more than she knows without enquiry from them. She has told me of much, during the last two days, of the Aztec land, including matters of which I had known little before."

      "Then let her say no more than I will come ashore tomorrow, and I will hear first what she can tell."

      They returned with many presents, having expressed pleasure at the intimation that Spaniards would land.

      Cortéz ordered Jeronimo to bring the Aztec girl to his own cabin, where they would dine together that evening, a cavalier, Puerto-Carrero, who was in his confidence, making a fourth.

      It was intended that she should give an account of the Aztec people and land, which Jeronimo would translate, but, in fact, she said little during the first hour, for the priest had learned so much from her already that he could compose his own narrative, only turning to her from time to time for elucidation or further detail, when some incisive question from Cortéz would require more explanation than he could give.

      In the cabin of the sea-house, which was the best name she could give the ship in the Aztec tongue, (it must have been an almost incredible marvel to her), she sat silently and self-possessed, listening to the rapid Spanish of Jeronimo (which she was already beginning slightly to understand), and answered in low musical Tabascan, if any question were addressed to her.

      She knew that the commander's eyes were upon her continually, but avoided showing consciousness of that, only looking at him when she spoke, when she seemed to be addressing him personally, as it was surely courteous to do, though she might be speaking in a strange tongue, which must be translated to him.

      Jeronimo said: "There is a great Emperor, Montezuma, who rules over the whole land, from a city that is in the midst of a lake (a kind of inland Venice, if I understand rightly what I am told). It is about two hundred miles from here. But his dominions extend much further than that, for it may be, a thousand miles; and his rule includes nations of different languages, some of whom would rebel, if they had courage enough, but he is stronger than they."

      Cortéz asked: "Are these reluctant vassals nearer to us, or further away?"

      Jeronimo turned to the girl, and for a minute or two they spoke rapidly together, she drawing outlines at times with a pink nail on the damask cloth.

      Then he turned to Cortéz. "Marina says: -"

      "Marina?"

      "Yes. Did I not tell you that she has accepted the faith? She was baptised yesterday in that name. She said that she would take our faith, she having become one of us."

      Cortéz said: "It was most wisely resolved." He wondered what measure of persuasion there might have been from one through whom she must speak (if at all), and who was so earnest in his own faith. "Well," he asked, "what does Marina say?" To which Jeronimo gave a detailed reply, showing the central position of the Aztec power, and how strong the subordinate nations were.

      Cortéz listened with more care than he allowed to appear, and there was little that he forgot. Then he began to question Marina, through the priest, concerning the social customs of this strange empire, its laws, its religion, its military strength, and, not least, as to its stores of gold and of costly stones, and from where they came, and finally as to herself, as it became evident that she was educated and informed, as a slave was unlikely to be; and so heard a tale which would have been hard to believe, had she not been such as to make its wonder less by her own evident fitness for the rank and its background she claimed to have.

      And he noticed at times that she had the look of one who is not entirely baffled by what is said in another tongue. And once she spoke a few words of Spanish, in a halting way. He thought: "Is she learning our language already?" And then: "But she is hearing it all the time. Except when Jeronimo speaks Tabascan to her." And then: "But, if she will learn Spanish well, what a boon she will be! It seems that she can talk in all the tongues of this land, having been so taught in her school days, with no time to forget. Our landing at Tabasco was of more avail than I had seen. As was my putting back to Cozumel for the leak I cursed. Surely it is the overriding mercy of God."

      He dreamed of Marina during a restless night. Once he rose, remembering that her cabin was very near to his own in the high poop of the ship, as he had ordered that it should be. He thought: "She is my slave. Shall I not have what I will?"

      Surely she would be glad - But perhaps not.

      She was not of a kind with whom a hidalgo of Spain should deal in a rough way.

      He lay down. He would talk to her when the morning should come, which would not be long.

      But that was just what he could not do.

      He told Jeronimo, when morning came, that it was important for her to learn Spanish with speed, for she could then interpret direct, and the priest said that that was true, and he would do what he could. She was one who was easy to teach.

Chapter 13

Envoy Of Montezuma

      Cortéz considered the friendly reception which he had had, he considered also that Marina had said that if he were resolved to see the Emperor he could not land at a much nearer point. He decided to go ashore.

      But, after the experience he had had, he would do all in a cautious way.

      The shore was barren and flat, with a ridge of sandhills, in which he saw advantage if he should be met, after all in a hostile mood.

      The next morning, being Good Friday, he began by sending his guns ashore. Mounted among the sandhills, they commanded a wide range. When this was done, he started the building of what had the appearance of a permanent camp. In this, he had the help of many of the natives. They shared the labour of building huts. They did not object to the felling of trees, on the edge of the sandy plain. They brought cotton cloth for the tents.

      The work was willingly, even merrily done; but they gave the Spaniards an impression of being under orders in what they did.

      There was much trading also, with ease and goodwill, though it must be conducted by signs alone, for both parties were sure that they got more than value for what they gave.

      Marina watched from a quiet deck, for there had been an order that no woman should go ashore. There were a few of a menial kind among the two hundred Cuban Indians who had been shipped to do the services which Spanish cavaliers would require, whether on water or land. They were of little account, and, besides them, there were only the twenty slave girls who had been acquired a few days before.

      After the way in which the interpreter had disappeared, it was mere prudence not to allow them a similar opportunity. Marina might observe that, but she had reason for discontent.

      She asked Jeronimo, who was with her, teaching her his language, as he had been told to do: "Should we not be on shore? I might find out much which it would be important for the captain to know."

      "He would fear lest you should rejoin your own people. You are important to him."

      "So I wish to be. But - my own people? These are not of my race. I suppose all of this land are alike to him. I do not wonder at that. If I should come to your world, I might go from country to country saying, 'they are all pink. How can you tell them apart?' But these people are not mine. They are not of the Aztec race. They are men conquered by Montezuma."

      "Even so, you might go through them, and return to your own home."

      "How could I do that? I have told you what was done. If it were known, it would bring my mother to death. Do you think I would do that?"

      "It would be an act from which a daughter might shrink, even though she had been hostile to you. But you cannot be sure that it was by her act that you were carried away. (Marina did not reply to that) And you could surely do other things, without returning to your own home."

      "They might be of little comfort to me. But that is what we need not discuss, for it will not be. You can tell your captain that I came here without many things of which I have need, and which it is important for me to buy now. And if I talk to these people here, it may be useful to him."

      The priest went ashore, and put the matter to Cortéz, as she had put it to him. Cortéz thought: "It is a great risk, for she is beyond price for me to have, knowing, as she does, so much that I could learn in no other way; and as interpreter also. But if I go inland (as I aim to do) I must take her with me, and she could not be guarded against escape night and day unless she were held in chains. Besides that I desire her myself for a better use. ... If she be trusted, she may stay with us, as she would otherwise be unwilling to do. It is a risk I will take."

      Showing no sign of these thoughts, he said to Jeronimo: "You have talked with her. You know her better than I. Will she keep her word?"

      "I know little of women. But she is one whom I would trust before most."

      "So I will. She must have needs, as she says. Give her the means to buy what she will."

      The priest returned with the permission. He said: "The boat waits. You may go now, if you will, I have brought you these."

      He gave her twenty small diamond-shaped beads of glass, at which she laughed, taking four, and handing the others back. "Did you think I would buy a house? These are jewels enough. ... But no, give me two more. There are others who will have needs which are like to mine."

      She went ashore in a gayer mood than she had known since she had walked among the flowers of her own garth. She found men who would serve her needs (and those of the other slaves, who could not come ashore, and whom she did not forget), though she must wait for her requirements to be brought to her from a nearby town on the next day, for those who had come to barter had not thought that there would be such a market to meet, And she talked to those who were glad to find one with whom they need not converse by grimace and gesture, and they talked freely with her.

      When sunset was near, she returned to the ship, to which Cortéz also retired, though he planned to lie ashore on the next night.

      Marina sought Jeronimo. "I must see the Commander," she said. "I have learned that which he should hear."

      There was no delay about that. Cortéz knew that a decisive moment had come. He could remain at this spot for sufficient time to barter the cargoes which he had brought, for as much of gold, or stones of value to the Old World, as he could contrive to get, hoping that the amount would cover the heavy expenses of the expedition; and return, knowing that others would come afterwards, who would go further than he. His part would be one of doubtful profit and little fame.

      Or he could go boldly into the interior, seeking this fabulous emperor in his city of solid gold, and find fame and wealth; or defeat and death by a much likelier guess... ... Well, the girl had come back. She had not judged him a sinking wreck, as the interpreter had. There might be a good omen in that. He said: "I will see them now."

      Marina and Jeronimo entered the room.

      Cortéz asked: "What has she heard?"

      The priest answered: "She has told me nothing. She has said it is first for you."

      Cortéz was pleased at that. It was how he had hoped it would be. He preferred to digest tidings before it became necessary to discuss them with others. That was why he had postponed a social meal with his captains (of which he was aware of a sharp need) so that he might see them entirely alone.

      Marina said: "You may think it is not much I have learned, but it is what you should know. The viceroy will visit you at tomorrow noon, having had orders from the Emperor as to what he shall say and do."

      She looked directly at Cortéz as she said this, as though he could understand; and he replied in the same way. Jeronimo interpreted for both with a quick ease, and they must both have been listening to him, but their eyes were not turned his way.

      Cortéz asked: "The viceroy? Who is he? Is he one of a great name?"

      "Our lord Montezuma," she explained, "took this people into his empire only a few months ago. He appointed Teuhtlile governor in his name. In his province, none will question his will. But he is still a dog that barks as his master bids."

      "Has his master bid that we be well received? Or is it too soon for him to know?"

      "The Emperor knows all. Every hour you have been watched since you anchored, and his runners have carried word of what has occurred."

      "Then it has been by his will that we have been received here in a friendly way?"

      "The orders are that nothing shall be done to give you offence before Teuhtlile shall talk with you himself. It is from him you will hear the Emperor's will."

      "If the people here only lost their freedom three months ago, could he depend upon them to carry out commands that they might not like?"

      "They have always been of a docile kind. As they are told, they will do. They will do anything except fight."

      "But they fought before?"

      "As a wren will fight the snake that invades her nest. Our army went through them as a sickle goes through the corn."

      The use of the possessive pronoun reminded him that it was an Aztec who spoke. But he did not doubt either her loyalty or her candour for that. Indeed, it was evidence that she did not trim her words to make them welcome to him.

      He said: "You have done me good service in warning me of what I have to expect. But I do not think to be turned by a viceroy's word. I am the envoy of a great king, and it is with this emperor himself that I must make occasion to speak."

      She said simply, as though stating a fact too certain for argument or offence: "You could not do that without his consent."

      Cortéz showed no resentment at this. He asked: "Why should you think me so feeble? You have seen the battlefield where the best of Tabasco died."

      "But you have not seen Montezuma extend his power. Your king may be greater than he. How can I judge? But what avail can there be in a distant throne? Would you put a thousand to flight with each man you have? And you would still be victim to him, could you do that?"

      "I believe what you say, that he is one of a great power. But there is One who is more than he. God is over all; and my own saint is not weak."

      He looked at her with a confident smile, as he said this, and he knew, as their glances met, that she had no less courage than he, though it were of a gentler kind. He knew that he could count on her whatever chanced, though she had warned him of what he faced in a clear way.

      She said: "Well if you are so sure!... ... It is how I would have it be."

      He rose, saying: "We will go to the large cabin, where supper is laid, and we have been delaying some hungry men. ... You will dine with me tonight."

      She could not have declined that, had she wished. She was his slave, as she did not forget. But she was not unwilling to go.

      Asking her, he must ask Jeronimo also, through whom the invitation was said.

      He went on less willing feet, being one who had little longing for wine, or for such conversation as he would be likely to hear. But it enabled her to ask him at times what was said, and she listened, and learned more of the Spanish tongue.

      She watched the captains, and learnt more of some of them than they would have chosen that she should know.

      She watched Cortéz also, and saw that he was in a very confident mood, or, rather, that he wished that it should be so thought, which was not quite the same thing.

      She thought: "Here are men of valour and wits, and they may have gods who are watchful for their relief, but there is none but he who would steer a resolute course. Were he down, they would fall apart like a bundle of staves if the cord be cut."

      They did not sit late, for Cortéz would be fresh of body and mind for the next day.

      He had talked of what might be done if they should be constant in purpose, and yet adroit to put causes of quarrel aside. Suaviter in modo - he had quoted, to some who understood, though not all.

      They were to be restrained and patient, that a great wealth should be theirs.

      He spoke as one who looks out on a harvest that ripens beneath his eyes, and brought them to a more confident mind than he was able to feel when he was alone in the dark hours.

      "Mary aid me," he prayed, "for our need may be beyond the limits of earthly man."

      But the virgin of his thoughts had an Aztec's eyes.

Chapter 14

A Pause Of Doubt

      Cortéz prepared for the reception of the Aztec envoy by the erection of a large tent, so that he could receive him in the presence of his principal officers, and that there would be protection from a pitiless sun.

      When he was advised that Teuhtlile was approaching on foot, with a large train, he went a short distance to meet him, with a few of his captains, whom he selected for their appearances rather than any attributes which it would be harder for an envoy to see.

      Their meeting was with a restrained and formal courtesy, limited by mutual ignorance of the etiquette of an unknown land, and a jealous anxiety to avoid anything which might appear either deliberately rude, or as an admission of the inferiority of their own king.

      Having no common language, Cortéz motioned his guest towards the pavilion, and when he and his retinue had been seated on his right hand, and the Spanish cavaliers opposite to them, mass was celebrated by Father Olmedo, with a ritual appropriate to the day, (It was Easter Sunday), and intended to impress their heathen visitors, who observed it with a polite silence, giving no indication of what they thought.

      A banquet followed, at which the best of the wines and delicacies that the ships contained were served and received with the same gravity and politeness; and then, when this had been cleared away, the interpreters were called in, and the serious business of the momentous meeting began.

      Teuhtlile spoke rapidly to Marina, and there was some show of animation both in his questions and her replies, but as the conversation had been mainly about herself - who she was, and how she came to be there - she was able to speak to Jeronimo with much greater brevity.

      The priest turned to Cortéz, to say only: "He enquires from what country you come, and what purpose your visit has."

      "Then it must have taken much longer to say in the Aztec tongue! Tell him that I come from a king who is very distant and very great, desiring friendship and trade. I bring gifts, which I am to deliver to his Emperor's hands, with a message which is only for him. I would know how soon such an interview can be arranged."

      Jeronimo gave this reply to Marina literally enough, and she had discretion to transform it somewhat, if not in substance, in the courtesy of its form; but it was easy to see that it was not well received.

      The viceroy's answer was curt and brief. When it reached Cortéz' ears, it was no more than: "Does a stranger who comes from a nameless land demand to see the greatest Emperor of the world on his second day?"

      But, before Cortéz had decided upon his reply, it was seen that the viceroy was speaking again, and at greater length. What he now said was: "The Emperor has sent gifts, which I am about to present. I will send back those which are intended for him, and we will put forward the request which has been made, so that his pleasure will be known."

      Without waiting for Cortéz to assent to this, he ordered that the gifts should be brought forward.

      His attendants then entered, bearing thirty rolls of cotton cloth, a basket containing many golden ornaments of fine workmanship, and, most beautiful in themselves, and most costly to make, a number of dresses of featherwork, in which the plumage of Mexico's brilliant birds had been stripped from their quills, and woven, thread by thread, on a background of cotton cloth, by a process which was to be forgotten in future years, into patterns of loveliness, both of colours and of design.

      Challenged in this concrete manner, Cortéz saw that he must respond. Could he reject the gifts? They might not be proffered a second time! Should he say, I will accept them, but I will give nothing myself unless I have the interview I demand? It would hardly be a politic method by which to seek to persuade a proud and reluctant king!

      He said: "Tell the envoy that he shall send to the Emperor the gifts I bring, with a petition that I be allowed to wait upon him, should I fail in this, my sovereign's displeasure would be a heavy burden for me to bear."

      With these words he had the gifts brought forward, which, by European standards, were of little comparative worth, but were of a different valuation to Aztec eyes, as a quantity of cut glass articles were included.

      The equity of such exchanges, and of the daily bartering which went on, may easily be misapprehended, and unjustly condemned. The defence of caveat emptor is not required. The fact is that both parties to these exchanges were satisfied with good reason that they were making very profitable deals.

      In Mexico, gold was plentiful, and easily procured. It had been found to be of very limited uses.

      In Europe, it was very highly valued, and had been hard to obtain.

      In Europe, cut glass, while of sparkling beauty, was not difficult, nor very expensive to make.

      In Mexico, where the process of making glass was unknown, such articles could not be obtained at all.

      The balance of advantage appears to have been on the Aztec side.

      The envoy showed no sign of discontent at what he beheld, but his attention wandered.

      He had noticed a soldier who had on a helmet which appeared to him to be made of gold. He said it reminded him of the headdress of a Mexican god. He thought the Emperor would be particularly interested to see it. Would Cortéz lend it for that purpose?

      Cortéz assented readily. He suggested that it would be a courtesy which would be appreciated if it were filled with gold-dust on its return.

      The helmet, which was not gold, but gilt, the vanity of the soldier having put his own gold to the use which he preferred, was handed over.

      Cortéz went on to explain that there was a serious disease in his country, for which gold was the only cure.

      While the interview proceeded, he had noticed that one of the envoy's suite was busy with pen or brush upon a sheet of canvas, and enquired what it might be.

      Soon the cavaliers were crowding around a vividly painted representation of themselves, which was being prepared for the Emperor's sight.

      Cortéz said there should be additional material for the artist's skill.

      Horses were saddled in haste. Sixteen cavaliers armed, and were soon displaying their skill on the incredible monsters that they controlled

      The guns were loaded, and a salvo of shots tore through the woods on the landward side.

      The Aztecs looked on, trying to appear indifferent to the strange centaurs, and the deafening noise of the guns; and the artist drew.

      After that, he was invited to draw the ships.

      The palace of the Emperor of this unknown world was two hundred miles away, but the envoy, coldly courteous at the last, assured Cortéz that the Emperor's decision would be communicated to him within ten days' time, and he had it in less than that.

      The Aztec had no method of transit speedier than their own legs, but they used them well.

      Relays of runners had laid the pictures, and the envoy's hierographic reports, at the Emperor's feet before the close of the next day.

      A week later, Teuhtlile came again, accompanied by two Aztec nobles, and many scores of slaves bearing presents of such beauty and profusion as must make any return which Cortéz would be willing, or even able to make of a very paltry comparison. The gilt helmet was returned, filled with the gold dust for which he had asked.

      The nobles bent in gestures of humility at the Spanish leader's feet. They looked with expressionless faces at the gilt goblet and Holland shirts which were to be his gifts in return for the munificence of their Emperor to him.

      The message which they gave to the interpreters was full of flattery and regard. But it was a clear refusal to allow the Spaniards to approach the capital.

      Here was the gold which they valued so highly beyond its worth. Let them take it, and return to their own land. The journey to the capital would be too long and arduous for them to undertake.

      Cortéz made a final effort to gain his will in an amicable way. He said, with apparent reason, that, having come three thousand miles for the honour of greeting the Aztec Emperor in his King's name, he was not likely to consider the last seventy leagues too hard an exertion to undertake. Would they not repeat his request?

      They replied that they would report what he said, but he must not expect that it would be of any avail. Their manners had become cool and aloof.

      Ten days later they came again. They brought further gifts, but their message was the same, and with more emphatic finality, than before. The Emperor desired only that the Spaniards would go.

      They had arrived at a later hour than before. Vespers was about to be sung. Courtesy or (more probably) curiosity induced them to remain, and to watch the Spanish soldiers kneeling around a wooden cross which had been set up on the sands.

      Father Olmedo took the opportunity to expound, through the interpreters, the dogma of Catholic faith. He gave them a small sacred image - Mother and Child - with a suggestion that they should place it in the temple of their own gods.

      They took it with expressionless faces, and in that manner they went.

      On the next day there was silence around the camp. Ominously, the native population had been ordered to keep away.

Chapter 15

Decision

      On the next morning, Cortéz called a counsel of his chief officers, to decide what should be done.

Or rather - for he usually had a decided mind on these occasions - to leave the responsibility of decision to them if it should agree with his own resolve, or to persuade, divide, cajole, or command, as it might otherwise be necessary to enforce his will.

      On this occasion, he knew that he would have no easy task, for the camp was seething with discordant counsels and discontents.

      During the fortnight of waiting, matters had not gone well.

      The natives who visited them came through the woods, from higher, cultivated ground, but in other directions beyond the sands there were swamps that bred strange noxious insects. They bit the men, and the men sickened. Already, at the wood's edge, there were the wooden crosses of thirty graves.

      Here was serious loss, which would be disastrous, if it should become worse. There was little pleasure in doing nothing for fourteen days under a sultry sun, watching comrades sicken, and wondering when your own turn would come.

      There was one thing, it was a safe guess, on which all would agree. They would not stay there for another day. But what were they to do?

      There was another reason for leaving. Cortéz had been fortunate to engage the best pilot he could have had. Alaminos had sailed with Columbus, and with most subsequent explorations. He knew all that was known of the tides and tempests and winds of these Western seas.

      He had said that the channel where they had anchored was not a safe position in which to remain. At the moment when they had anchored - yes. They had lain windless, in the lee of the land. But how if the wind should change? If it should come from the north?

      In these seas the north wind was the one to dread, and they would have no protection at all.

      Cortéz had dealt with this warning by sending Alaminos, with two ships, of which Montejo had chief command, to sail northward exploring the coast, but they had not returned.

      It was of the nature of Cortéz that his spirits rose to the height of the danger with which they might have to deal. He might have hours of depression after defeat, or when there was a stagnation of circumstance which he could not stir, but at the moment when battle joined he would be alert and confident, to the measure of his confronting foes.

      Now he was rowed ashore from his own ship, which he had visited in the early hours of the day with sufficient pretexts, among which was the importance of maintaining his daily practice with Marina in the use of the Spanish tongue. It was of an obvious advantage to eliminate the awkwardness and delay of having to use two interpreters, and Marina was learning fast. Indeed, as, when Cortéz was absent, Jeronimo took on the task, she was talking more often than not. It is a method by which a language may soon be learned.

      Cortéz had gone to the ship, because he had issued an order that no woman should come ashore. There had been reason for that, apart from that which he gave, which had been that they might escape. It had been made after a duel between Avila and a gentleman of Havana, which had left the latter without the use of his right arm for some weeks to come.

      To have made Marina an exception would have been a kind of folly which Cortéz did not commit.

      And it was certainly natural that he should wish to teach his interpreter how to talk to him. There would be no wonder for that. There was wonder, and some grumbling, that he appeared to make no more use of her in other ways. Why should he keep from others that which he did not take for himself?

      But most men remembered his curt word to Alvarado: "She is not for you," and had discretion to leave her alone.

      Only one of Alvarado's brothers, who was an officer of the ship, and of more hazardous moods than Alvarado himself, tested her growing knowledge of Spanish by asking: "What would happen to me if I should mistake your cabin for mine at the end of the second watch?"

      Perhaps it was not easy to find the right words in a foreign tongue. There was a pause of silence, during which she looked at him with amused eyes, after which she said slowly, selecting words: "You might live till the next time you should sleep; but not longer than that."

      "That," he asked boldly, "being the custom of slaves in your land?"

      "But I am not yours."

      "You are his by whom you are not desired. Are you so content?"

      She made no answer to that, but the laughter had left her eyes.

      Now Cortéz went, with a half jesting but promising word: "You will not be bored longer here. We shall sail or march. I go now to be told which I shall do."

      There was intimacy and understanding in the mockery of her reply: "Sir... ... You are one to be told!.. Do I grumble? It is better to be bored than to die."

      There was reason in that. There had been no sickness among those who had stayed in the ships.

      She watched Cortéz' boat pull to the shore. She saw him make his way to the great pavilion upon the sands. The beach was crowded by those who argued or quarrelled, groups joining or breaking apart. There was excitement and animation among those who were still in health, which might endure till the sun gained height in the sky. But there were others stretched on the sands who were too fevered to care for more than their present ill.

      She watched Cortéz (for he was taller than most) till he entered the tent, and then turned her eyes to a quiet sea, the blue reflection of a heaven that had no cloud, and that shone with the bright light of the mounting sun.

      She was not looking for anything to appear on waters which, till they came, may have been crossed by no keel in ten thousand years, but on the northern horizon now she saw what might have been two small white birds, that grew larger the while she gazed. She thought: "Montejo returns. Does he come at the right hour?"

      Meanwhile Cortéz looked round on a score of those on whom he must most depend to carry on to success whatever might be decided to do.

      Voices, as he entered, had been bitter in criticism, or in dispute. He knew that he had sure friends, and that others were less than that. He knew that most thought first of themselves, and might not have blamed them for that. He knew that some were most concerned that they should now speak and act so that they would have the approval of Velásquez on their return. There was most danger from them.

      He said: "Senors, I have called you here because we are all partners in this venture, and I would decide nothing alone. We have done much. We have come further in the New World than any European has come before. We have obtained much treasure, though the holds of our ships are still heavy with goods which we could barter for more. You have heard the refusal of the lord of this land to let us enter it in a peaceful way. We have to decide what next we will do, both for ourselves, and for those others who, though they are not here, were joint venturers with ourselves; and for the glory of God and Spain.

      I will not say first what I may think. I would have all freely discussed. Diego is the youngest among us. Let him speak first."

      Diego said: "It is not I should decide. I will do as is resolved, whether to stay or to go, with a light hand. Yet what have we left to discuss? We are refused admission to this land, which we are too few to compel to our own will.

      "If we stay here, we may die of disease, for which it seems that none may have long to wait; or we may be attacked by these Aztecs in such force that many would perish before we could scramble back to our ships.

      "Or if we be spared both by God and man - by disease and our human foes - what can we do here but to starve? We have scarcely food in our holds to sustain life till we shall be able to get supplies at Cozumel, which I take to be the nearest place at which we can safely call. It is plain that there should be orders to get back to the ships in the next hour."

      Cortéz said quietly: "It has a reasonable sound as you put it thus. But should we not wait Montejo's return, and hear what his report will be?"

      Velásquez de Leon, who was nearly related to the Cuban Governor, added: "That's what we all think who have our feet on the ground. There's really nothing more to be said. I don't see what difference Montejo's return will make, but you'll find, when he does come, he'll say the same."

      Cortéz did not doubt that. Montejo was one of the Cuban Governor's closest friends. He had had that in mind when he had chosen him for a purpose which would silence him for a few days at the least.

      But before he could reply there was a disturbance at the entrance of the pavilion, where men with excited voices were pushing in.

      Someone shouted that Montejo was back. His ships were in sight now.

      Cortéz called for order in a voice which few men would disregard. "Must we have disorder for that?" He had a moment's doubt of what it might mean. Had he an organised conspiracy to face. Had they only been waiting for Montejo's return?

      But in the next moment he learned that the interruption came from another cause.

      A deputation of Indians, of an obvious importance, had appeared, speaking a language which no one could understand.

      He said: "Bring them in. Give them seats, and let the interpreters be summoned in haste."

      The five Indians who now entered the pavilion were of a different aspect from any who had been previously. They were not ill-dressed, but, by European standards, if compared to the Aztecs, they would appear to be of a more barbarous kind. Gold gem-studded rings hanging from nostrils and ears, and gilded chins, were alien to anything which had been seen before in the New World, and unattractive to Christian eyes.

      Jeronimo and Marina quickly arrived, and she began to talk to the most prominent of the five, but it was evident at once that there was a new difficulty to be faced.

      Marina turned towards Cortéz to say: "They are Totonacs by the way they dress. I can tell you that. But it is a language I do not know."

      Talking to Jeronimo now, in the Tabascan tongue, she gave more details of whom they were, while they listened blankly to tongues that were strange to them.

      It was only when she tried them with Aztec that she found that it could be understood, more or less, by two of the five, although not by the chief.

      She had already explained that they came from a nation of some importance, which occupied coastal plains to the north. They had been there for several centuries of independence, but had recently been overcome by the Aztecs, and their country included in the Empire of Montezuma. Beyond that, she knew little of them, and their language had not been taught in the Aztec schools.

      So the chief envoy of the Totonacs must state his business through the medium of three interpreters, but it was of sufficient importance to render this a matter of no impediment, though the process of communication was exasperatingly slow.

      They said that the weight of Aztec oppression was becoming intolerable, and having heard of the rout of the Tabascan army, and of the strange and terrible weapons that the Spaniards possessed, they had come to solicit their help in a war of liberation, for which they would be generous in reward.

      Cortéz despite the difficulty of interpretation was patient and detailed in enquiries as to their resources, population, and strategic position, and then answered them with diplomatic vagueness, though with avoidance of discouraging words.

      Their proposal, he said, could not be answered without deliberation, but they could expect to hear further from him.

      Would he not visit them, they asked, in their own capital, and see how resolute, how united, and how well-munitioned they were?

      Yes, he replied, he might do that. They might expect that he would be there on a near day.

      He gave them many presents, and they went away without certainty, but with good hopes.

      Meanwhile Montejo had arrived, and had his report to make.

      For several days, keeping the coast in sight, he had contended with adverse winds, until, coming to the headland which was named Panoco in later days, he had vainly attempted to round it, and had abandoned the effort after narrowly avoiding wreck on a lee shore.

      On returning, with helpful winds, he had surveyed the coast thoroughly, and, on the pilot's advice, there was one place, and one only, where they could find anchorage protected from the fury of northern winds. It was much superior to their present location, being surrounded by fertile well-watered land.

      "Well, gentlemen," their commander said, at the conclusion of this report, "you have heard what the Totonac envoys say, you have heard that there is good anchorage further west in a pleasant land. There is one thing on which I think we are all agreed. We cannot stay here, now that food is no longer brought to the camp. Shall we go forward or back? And if we go on; in which direction is it to be?"

      "He looked round a crowded tent, in which many stood behind the seats and around the door, for none who obtained entrance by any means had been willing to leave. He had still expressed no opinion himself. He left it to them.

      Pedro de Alvarado sprang to his feet. He said: "We have heard counsel, I will not say of cowards, but of timid men. And, after that, we have heard of opportunities such as men of courage are quick to seize. I say, let us found a new state here for the glory of Spain. We know that you have no commission for that. The Cuban Governor could not give you more than his own charter allowed. But we have our duties to Church and State; and that which we do now may be confirmed by Madrid on a later day."

      Puerto-Carrero said, more quietly: "There is reason in that. Why should not the fleet sail to this better anchorage of which we have heard, while we march to the city of these men who would be our friends - which is, more or less, to go the same way - and leave further decision till we have seen what reception we may have there?"

      As he ended, several voices broke in at once in a discordant clamour which only ceased as Cortéz rose.

      "Gentlemen," he said, "we waste words, for I have resolved that we sail home, and I will tell you why it must be.

      "It is a decision to which I am reluctant to come, because it will end in little profit for us. When the treasure has been set aside which must go to our Lord the King, and de Velásquez has had his share (and who would wish him to go short?) There will be little for us.

      "But there are three things which I must observe.

      "First, it has been rightly said that, if I should found a colony here, I should go beyond my commission, which I do not propose to do.

      "Second, although we may go back having done little, and with little profit in our own hands, and although, as I do not doubt, my commission will not be renewed, we have blazed the trail. What do we matter, if the end will be, as Don Pedro has said, to the glory of God and Spain?

      "And the third reason is this: We could not go forward with a fair prospect of fruitful days unless we were alike in purpose and hope.

      "I am not deaf to the arguments of those who consider that to go forward is a duty which we owe to Heaven and our King. I will tell you this: However anxious I may be not to go beyond the letter of the Commission I hold, if you had been united in your demand that we should go on, I should have had a most anxious decision to make. But, as it is, there is no occasion for doubt at all. We sail home at tomorrow's dawn."

      He looked round on those who had become silent, and among whom there was none who had a face of content.

      Among those who had wished to pursue the adventure further, and who had supposed that they were supporting him, what hope could there be, if he himself should pronounce against them?

      That they should be disconcerted and dumb may have been natural enough, but it was more curious to observe that there was no elation among those who had obtained their demand with such singular ease.

      They had supposed that Cortéz would be resolved to go on, at whatever price. If that were so, those who made vocal protests might lose nothing thereby, and be sure of the Cuban Governor's approval on their return. They would be freed from any share of responsibility in the very likely event of the expedition ending disastrously.

      They may not have analysed their motives or intentions to such a point, but, had they done so, preference would have been that the expedition should go forward under protest from them.

      They had invested in it; many to the limit of all they had. If it should end without profit, it would be bitter consolation that Velásquez might fit out another, under a different captain, which would have a success which they might not share.

      And, so far as they had been actuated by personal enmity to Cortéz, their protests had failed by their success. His decision had been prompt, and its propriety was beyond dispute.

      He would be clear of rebuke, while his statement that their attitude had forced his decision would put the blame of failure upon themselves. There were many who had invested in the venture, but had not joined it. When the reason for its partial failure should be discussed, would they be praised or contemned? No one could prove that, but for their opposition, it might not have gone have on to a great success.

      But Cortéz was already issuing orders in accordance with the decision he had announced.

      "Mesa," he said, "you should get the guns aboard. ... And you, Bernal, should have the horses loaded with care. There must be no haste about that. ... ... And I will have census of the food in each ship, that it may be equally shared. We may be near to starve before we see the shores of Havana Bay."

      Puerto-Carrero, quiet of manner and voice, but knowing his commander as few did, thought silently: "Why does he remind them of that? He might decide to return; but would he do it in so cheerful a way?"

      But Cortéz went back to his own ship. He strode down the beach, whistling a tune, as one whose troubles were over now.

      Afterwards, while he continued to improve Marina's Spanish, for which it might be thought that he would have less use than before, he watched a beach where men were less busy in striking tents than in arguing in little groups on the sand. He showed no sign of vexation at that.

Chapter 16

Victory By Defeat

      Velásquez de Leon commanded the sloop, a position that had been given to him rather because of his relationship to his namesake, the Cuban commander, than from any skill he had in controlling an hour of storm. He was not short of courage or enterprise, but he was of a scrupulous honour, and that relationship came near to being ruin to him. His second in command was one, Escobar, who had been his page, and remained with him after the years of such a position would generally have been past.

      Escobar now acted as his lieutenant upon the sloop, and he being the only other officer on so small a boat, they were alone in their cabin at the last meal of the day, which had been little trouble to cook, and could be eaten in little time.

      Escobar looked at a platter he could not praise. He was one who valued his food. He said: "We shall be thinner men in a week's space. ... Why could he not have foraged first, before he sent us aboard?"

      Velásquez made a poor joke. He said: "He will be sick at heart for this day. He will be too sick to eat. We shall profit by that."

      Escobar gave a literal reply. "How can that be, when we are not on his ship? But is it he who should fret?"

      "Well, he must go home with his tail low. He will have a poor boast."

      Escobar was a doubtful man. He said that which was being said by others of Velásquez's party throughout the fleet, and, if they did not say it, those of Cortéz part would say it to them. "Are you sure of that? It is we who will take the blame. Men will say that we held him back from a great gain... He would have gone on to we know not what of defeat and loss, with no warrant for what he did. We may have done evil or good for ourselves, which is hard to guess, but we have assured that he will come clear, while they will have names for us of a scoffing kind."

      "Why did you not say this before?"

      "Could I foretell what he would do? Did we not suppose that we should be met with a stiff neck... That is done now ... ... But I say we should forage first."

      On the sloop, there was no more than these grumbling words, but others were more alert for their own relief.

      Montejo took a boat to the Commander's vessel, and was received by Cortéz in his most genial mood.

      "You say that larders are bare? So it is. But as to calling at Cozumel, can we be sure of how much we could get there? We have failed, and it cannot be too soon that the tale is done ... ... I will for home while the wind is fair."

      "Is there nothing that can first be taken aboard? As you know, I have not been here, but some who know more --."

      "Have you not heard that there was none yesterday who came to our camp? They must have been ordered to keep away."

      "Can you not go to them?"

      Cortéz considered this with a friendly smile. "It is an idea . ... We might have little opposition, if we should forage with speed. There need not be more than a day's delay, at most, two. ... Because we have ended our quest for gold, is there reason that we should starve?. ... But you will see how I stand. I called counsel, and must abide by that which was resolved.

      "Yet you are one whose opinions I must respect. If there should be others of the same mind. ... My captains have not found me to be one who will not listen to them."

      Montejo replied: "That is fairly said. I should forecast that you will have mandate for this."

      He did not go back to his own ship. He rowed to another. During the night there was passage of other boats under the stars of a still night.

      Before dawn, it was known by most that they would not sail until provisions had been obtained. In any case they could not have hoisted sails at that hour. All had not been brought aboard by men who had argued and quarrelled rather than toiled during the previous day.

      Cortéz thought: "It will be easier than I could have guessed. I shall be driven by those who would not be led."

      Alvarado rode out while the sun was still low, with three other steel-clad cavaliers, and forty men on foot who had swords with which to argue, and beads for barter, and sacks to fill.

      But they found that there would be no occasion for use of swords. The natives were glad to deal, having compulsion for their defence. More than that they were willing, for little payment, to offer their own backs for burden on the return to the camp.

      They came back before set of sun with good store of food, and some golden trinkets that they had been no less eager to buy.

      Alvarado, who had been fluent before in contempt of those who had advocated return, would not have been surprised had he seen the guns landed and the tents erected again, but there was no change of that kind. The beach still lay bare, and it was not till he was in Cortéz' cabin, making report, that he had any indication of what had been happening during the day.

      Cortéz said, almost as soon as he had commenced. "That is well. I will not ask for the details now. You should go to the Santa Anna with speed. There is a meeting there which I have not been asked to attend."

      Pedro stared at that: "They have had their way! What more do they plot now?"

      "Well, you will learn that, if you go. And you have a voice that they will be likely to heed. But you must not suppose that there will be quarrel to make. You may find they will come to me in a begging way. ... Christoval and our two Alonsos are there; and you will find Montejo may deserve to be heard... ... Where are the cavaliers who rode out with you?"

      "De Leon and his page have gone back to their own sloop, and I left de Ordaz marshalling and dividing the stores."

      "You have done well. Leave them thus. The Santa Anna's cabin must be crowded enough."

      Alvarado rowed to the Santa Anna with lively speculation of what would be happening there. He saw that the three cavaliers who had ridden out with him had been chosen so that they should be out of the way. He had learnt that Christoval de Olid, and the two Alonsos - Puerto-Carrero and de Avila - were at a counsel which Cortéz did not attend; and that Montejo - the Cuban Governor's most dangerous adherent, except perhaps de Ordaz -, was to be regarded as a possible friend.

      He entered a cabin where those of most account sat round a centre table, with Puerto-Carrero at its head, and others stood, to the most that it would contain, or looked in through an open door.

      They made way for him to enter. Someone gave him a seat. Puerto-Carrero said: "Pedro, you have come at a good hour. You shall hear that on which we have come near to agree.

      "We all know that our Commander feels that he can do no more on the commission he holds. We do not say he is wrong in that. He had from Cuba all the authority which it could give, which was not much.

      "But we have to think how we now stand. The commission is not ours, either to limit or to allow. We have only our duty to God and Spain. We ask ourselves why should we not plant a colony here."

      Montejo said: "As I see it, we can decide that, and we are too strong to be overruled. But our Commander cannot be one with us, unless he shall first resign the commission which he holds in a public way. If he do that, Velásquez must be free from blame for what may be done in the next hour, and we shall have been faithful to him, and still free to make profit for all who have trusted us, before we make our return."

      Alvarado was not of a subtle mind. He was rather one to go a straight way, and trust to a naked sword, but he saw that Montejo had shifted ground in a way that Velásquez might find it hard to condemn. He asked: "What would you do now?"

      "We would found a colony here, in our King's name, and for the glory of Spain. Cuba has no portion in this, but those who have wealth at stake shall have their share in a private way."

      Alvarado saw that they were united in what they did. Cortéz was not to be asked. He was to be told. He could resign his present commission, and join them, or stand out, if he would. He knew that Puerto-Carrero was the Commander's friend. So were others who were most prominent there. It was more likely that Montejo had been won over than that they had gone over to him.

      He said: "It has the sound of a good plan, if our Commander agree thereto."

      "That, "Puerto-Carrero replied, "will be for himself to say. But we are herein of a settled mind."

      "Then, "Alvarado agreed, "it should be put straightly to him."

      They spent no more time in debate, but agreed on eight of their number, of which Montejo was the only one who had been of Cortéz party, rather than that of the Cuban Governor, who should go forward to the Commander's ship, and tell him the resolve to which they had come; and they elected Montejo to speak for all, which was shrewdly done.

      When they were seated in Cortéz cabin, Montejo said: "It is true that there were some (I do not speak of myself. I was not here) who thought that it would not comply with the terms of the authority which you hold for us to have invaded the land, as they thought it to be your purpose to do. Their duty to His Excellency appeared to constrain them in this, and it quickly became clear that you were of the same mind. But there were others who looked further, so that they became aware that Cuba is less than Madrid.

      "From our Lord the King you have no mandate herein (neither have we) either to go forward or turn aside. That being so, we must put his honour and welfare first, lest we be traitors to him - lest we be traitors to God and Spain."

      Cortéz listened to this in a quiet way. He said: "I would be clear as to what you mean. Do you call my commission naught? Do you depose me from my command?"

      "We say no more than that our duty to Spain does not allow us to retire from a work half-done. We would found a colony here, claiming the greatest land that hath yet been found in the Western World for our Lord the King. We think most will be with us in this. Would you sail eleven ships back with your single hand? It could be done. But we have not said that we are disloyal to you. It is the common hope that you may decide in the same way."

      "It is a matter which must be looked at from every side. I will give you answer at prime of day."

      He rose at this, and the deputation understood that there was no more to be said at that time. They scattered to their own ships, in each of which men of all ranks, whether of land or sea, were debating in eager groups, but with less of discord, and more of enthusiasm, than they had shown on the previous day.

Chapter 17

Decision Again

      Marina's cabin was small, and though its neatness made the most of what space there was, Cortéz was conscious that he overcrowded it, as he bent his head so that the wide-plumed hat might come through the door.

      As he did so, Marina rose from its single seat, as a slave should. She had been alone, for even Jeronimo could not talk all the time, and her thoughts had been such as would be natural to one who was about to sail, in the hands of alien men, to an unknown land. But she was one who accepted life with serene eyes, facing whatever came in a quiet way, and having learnt to conceal her thoughts through a girlhood in which the narrow restraints and inhibitions of her education had not been modified by the warm affections which prevailed in most Aztec homes.

      Cortéz threw his hat on to her bunk, and then picked it up again, as he said: "I do not want your stool - no, we cannot talk here. I have that to say to which you should answer with care. You shall come with me.

      She did not understand every word of his rapid Spanish, but the last ones, and his meaning, were clear. She followed him into his own spacious cabin, which was near to the whole ship's breadth, and watched him thrust the bolt with expressionless eyes.

      "Now," he said, "if you will sit, we can talk at ease."

      He sat down in his great carved oaken chair, throwing his hat onto the table before him, and motioning her to a seat at his right hand.

      He wondered what went on in her mind. She was looking less at him than at a porthole through which a brilliant star in the low sky of the tropic night would come and go, as the ship lifted upon the tide. He saw that she did his will without arguing words, as a slave should. But he must know more than that - It had become vital to him to know.

      He came straight to the point. "Marina, will you look at me? I have not known you to lie. If the choice should be yours to make, would you be true to me, or to those of your own land?"

      She had to ask him to repeat this, but when its meaning was clear she only said: "Does it matter now?"

      "Should I ask, if it did not?"

      She had a moment's thought - did it feel like a hope? She was not sure - that he was offering her the choice of freedom, or of going a Spaniard's way. Now that he was leaving the land, she saw that her value as an interpreter was done. He might think to repay her with freedom for the service which she had rendered to him.

      She said: "I meant that you will not need me now - Now that you are going away."

      "But suppose that we do not go?"

      She was silent at this. What other course could there be? He could not think to defy the Aztec empire with the little strength that he had. It would be insane.

      He went on, repeating or altering his words when he saw that he was not understood: "I will tell you all I intend, so that, when you reply, there will be nothing you do not know.

      "I will plant the flag of Spain in this land, and will spread our faith for the salvation of men.

      "Your Aztec emperor may be friend or foe as he will, but he will find that he is facing a tide which will not retreat.

      "In three day's time, if not less, you will see these ships take the northward way which has been already explored, to find better anchorage than there is here; while I shall march overland to the Totonac city, and may gain potent allies. "When I do this, I shall need you as interpreter, for which Father Jeronimo will be no use at all.

      "I do not wish to hold you in bonds, or set a watch in a trustless way.

      "But you will see that we may be at strife with those of your own blood: we may be allied with your own country's foes."

      She did not know all the words he used, but she understood enough. Indeed, it was only necessary to learn that he was not sailing away for her dilemma - and his - to become clear.

      She had become essential to him, and she must either be most closely guarded by night or day, or she would, sooner or later, escape to her own people, if she should be so inclined.

      Also, she could hold converse with those whom she interpreted, the purport of which he could not know. She could betray in a score of ways.

      She thought: "I was sold to slavery by my mother as I believe. I can have no certain proof, but I am sure I was drugged while still in my own home, and how else should it have been? But that was a private wrong. I do not blame my nation for that.

      "But, after that, I was sent to these men by orders which came from the Aztec viceroy of Tabasco. I was given to them as a slave, to serve them in what qualities may be mine, as a slave is expected to do.

      "If I should escape to my own people again, it might be said that I should be defying the Emperor's will. They might even send me back, if they should make treaty of peace, to be paid with stripes, as is the custom with slaves who flee.

      "It is a choice I would avoid, if I could, but it must be made. I must choose, and must then be faithful in what I do, which means that -"

      She saw that she was inclining to stay, or the question of faith would not arise. But, if she said she could not be faithful to him, would he let her go?

      She approached obliquely to that which was in both their minds when she said: The Totonacs are a barbarous folk. I suppose we are savages in your eyes, and there are ways in which you seem no better to us; but the Totonacs would be so called both by us and you. It is not only for their nose-rings and painted chins."

      She had difficulty in expressing this, but was sufficiently understood. He replied: "I have made no alliance with them. I go to hear and to see. But the judgement must be mine, and those who are of my part must not refuse any road where I lead the way."

      "Yes," she said, in her own tongue, so that it had no more meaning to him than a tone will give, "that is plain to see. It must be nothing or all."

      They looked at each other in a silence during which understanding grew. He had considered her in two ways from the first day - as a woman to be possessed, and as an interpreter to be used for essential ends; and he had put the advantage of the expedition before his own - or, perhaps we should say, the good of the expedition had seemed to be of more urgency, if not of more importance to him.

      And while he had acted thus she had practised his speech, until it had become possible for them to be of a unity which need not be of the body alone.

      He broke the silence with: "If we go by land, would you lie bare on the ground, as most will? There will be few tents. Will you share mine?"

      She looked puzzled, as though his words were not easy to understand, which might well be; but in fact she understood well enough, though being unwilling to risk misunderstanding.

      But when he repeated his words in a simpler form, and with clearer meaning for that, there was a sudden glow in her eyes, and she laughed in a way which it was a pleasure to him to hear, as she said: "The nights may be cold on these shores, though the days are hot. Shall I chose the ground, when I am offered better than that?"

      He knew little of the customs of her land, and she little of his, and it was of the mingled caution and boldness by which he would gain his ends that he made no further approach at that time, and it was from the same quality which recognised equity rather than law (as when he had seized the grain-ship, and then agreed to buy at a full price) that he said, as he rose to unbar the door for her to leave: "I have a wife in Cuba. You know that?"

      "I have heard," she answered gravely. And then laughed: "Should a slave protest?... ... Who can alter the past?. ... And every day you will be further away... Men have more than one in my own land."

      It was a betrothal of a strange kind between those of alien races: between master and slave - but a slave who could do a service which could be obtained from no other source.

      And they were both largely content. She had that for which she had hoped, from the moment when she had seen him first at the slave-room door. She thought of it through a wakeful night, with confidence both in him and herself that they would go far, though she could not guess to what end it would be.

      He was doubly content, foreseeing a mistress for himself whom he was urgent to have, and one who would be of large service to the plans which were exciting his mind. He also lay long awake, but she left his thoughts... ... He had much to resolve and design for the coming day.

Chapter 18

A City Without A Site

      Having thought in the night, Cortéz was ready to act when the day came.

      He had an early conference with Puerto-Carrero, on whom he could entirely depend, after which that discreet cavalier went off to attend another meeting on the Santa Anna, to which again Cortéz was not invited.

      He was back within an hour, in company with Montejo, the two saying that they had been delegated to hear his decision.

      Cortéz asked: "Are you still resolved that you will go on, or have you listened to more prudent advice?"

      Puerto-Carrero replied: "We are resolved that we will go on."

      "But does none dissent?"

      "There is de Leon, and he has the support of his page. There is none other of any name."

      "Then how will you proceed?"

      "We will found a city here, on the barren coast, to the glory of Spain, no man being ousted or wronged thereby. We must have officials chosen for that, and we have agreed, to avert dispute, that they shall be nominated by you, and we will abide by the choice you make."

      "I cannot do that. I have no license therefor, either from Cuba or from Madrid."

      "But you can advise, which is all we ask. If we resolve that we will accept such advice, you have usurped nothing which is not yours."

      With these words he produced a sheet of parchment on which a list of offices had been written, with a blank column where the names of those who would hold them could be filled in.

      Cortéz examined it with an expressionless face. He noticed that the non-existent city had received a name: Villa Rica de Vera Crux. He thought well of that.

      He looked up to ask: "You will have two alcaldes? There are spaces for two names."

      "Yes. Their first duty will be to convene a meeting for the election of a governor, who will be answerable to none but the Spanish Crown."

      "It is well designed."

      He picked up a pen, and wrote with a rapidity which suggested that the matter had had some previous thought. When he handed the parchment back, the two who received it may not have been greatly surprised to observe that their own names headed the list. Montejo had been bought (if that word be fair) at a high price.

      The names that followed were selected from those who had been loyal to Cortéz throughout, but that does not say that they were not the most worthy choices. Most of the best men were among those who had been loyal to him.

      The council of the city-to-be met at a later hour. They were very formal in all they did.

      They had been elected at a meeting held on the sands, from which few of the adventurers had been absent. General acclamations had drowned the protests of a few who had been resolved that their opposition should come to the Cuban Governor's ears.

      Now the council debated gravely as to who should be elected Governor of the proposed Colony, and did not surprise themselves when they agreed unanimously that Cortéz was the best choice.

      It is equally unlikely that he was surprised when the now formally elected alcaldes waited upon him again, and entreated him to accept the office. But he was still scrupulous in procedure. He said that it would be an impropriety for him to accept it until he had resigned the commission which he had received from Velásquez. How was that to be done?

      There was only one possible way for it to have definite and chronological proof. He must hand it over to the heads of the new colony, and then, after it had been accepted by them, he would be free to take what other office he would.

      So it was done, with public ceremony enough, and so he became absolute ruler, subject only to the distant control of the Spanish King, of those he led, and of all the land he could acquire by bargain or spoil in the new land.

      With the carefulness which he always applied to all questions of property, he arranged, as a condition of his acceptance of the appointment, that his remuneration should be one fifth of the precious metals that might be acquired either by violent or peaceful means.

      His first act of authority was to order the immediate arrest of those who had been most vocal in protest against what had been done. De Leon and Escobar were soon sitting in chains in the cabin of their own sloop.

      The whole proceedings had an element of unreality, even of farce. Can men create authority by electing themselves? Under some conditions they certainly can. And, it may be asked, how could it have been done better?

      The essential fact was that these men were determined to continue their wild adventure, and that they were loyal to Spain - which was thousands of miles away.

      Cortéz may be said to have self-created his own exalted office, through the loyalty of those he led, but he had also created an obligation of loyalty in the new land to the Spanish Crown.

      It remained to be seen how he would deal with those whom he had arrested, which would be the first, and perhaps the decisive test of his fitness for the office which he assumed.

Chapter 19

Totonac

      The arrested men had not muttered treason and clanked their chains for more than two hours when they heard a boat's hail, and the running of feet overhead, following which the Governor himself was in their cabin, looking at them with speculate humorous eyes, but not removing his white-plumed hat, as he had done when he had intruded into Marina's cabin on the previous night.

      "Gentlemen," he said, "I would have preferred to see you in greater comfort than you are now."

      "Then why -" Escobar began angrily.

      "That is what I came to explain.

      "I have no quarrel with you. You are good men, whom I need. But we are going into unknown dangers, which require that we shall be united in all we do. I cannot take those who will either differ or doubt.

      "But if I send you to Hispaniola -"

      Leon interrupted him quickly: "Why do you say that? It is to Cuba that we belong."

      "So you do. But I am now Governor here, and accountable only to Spain. Besides that, how can Cuba's Governor be judge in his own cause? It is Hispaniola's Governor who must decide your case, or send you to Madrid, as he may think well.

      "But you should know that it is not of my will that I do this. I would rather that you were loyal to me, and to the great adventure on which we go. It is still for yourselves to decide, either to sail or to stay."

      He went without giving time for reply, and was not surprised to hear at a later hour that they had professed their willingness to accept that which they could not change, and to swear loyalty to him. He thought that he had done well, and that his clemency would be regarded with more respect than if he had not first put them in chains. He supposed that there would be no more trouble from them.

      Having all now under his own control, with far greater authority than before, he was swift in action, as the position required.

      He left his heavier guns on the ships, for they would have been too great a labour to drag. He sent the falconets back to land.

      He gave the fleet orders to sail to the new anchorage which had been found, leaving it with only seamen enough for its safe handling. All others, including the Indians, who would be most useful as beasts of burden, were to march overland to Cempoalla, the capital city (if it should prove to be worthy of such a name) of the Totonacs, to a total of nearly seven hundred men, and about thirty women, including the Tabascan slaves, most of whom had now attached themselves to their new masters in preference to those who had treated them as suitable gifts for an alien foe.

      They set out with the caution which their commander always applied to his wildest risks. Ten cavaliers rode ahead, at the walking pace which the march required. The footmen advanced on a wide front over open land. Cortéz rode in the midst. The most precious of the baggage was immediately behind him. Then the women. Then more footmen. Then the Cuban Indians, burdened with many things. Then the four falconets, drawn by Indians, and with their gunners beside them. Then five mounted cavaliers to protect the rear.

      Cortéz had come with his utmost force, which was intended to give confidence to those who might be doubtful allies.

      When they came to more fertile, cultivated ground, they must advance on a narrower front. But Indian scouts were now sent ahead, and widely to left and right, though they had no cause to suppose that they would be met in a hostile way.

      Nor were they; but rather it appeared that they were not being met at all. They came to houses and huts, but there was no sign of human life, and orders were strict that they should not break ranks to explore what might lie under those silent roofs.

      "If any man," Cortéz had said as they set out, "shall do violence to any, or take a spoil without orders from me, he shall hang, though it were but a string of beads, and he the best friend I have. ... So be warned, for I have none to spare, and it is what it would be no pleasure for me to do."

      Following directions which had been given to them, after the first few miles they took a leftward road, and were soon out of sight of the sea, and in a country that was brilliant with butterflies and tropic flowers.

      In wooded places they saw wild turkeys, and many smaller birds of more brilliant hues.

      At noon, when a halt had become imperative, they came to a deserted village, where they camped and dined.

      The village was not very large. It consisted of a number of stone houses and mud huts, surrounded by luxuriant gardens, and intersected by narrow paths (the absence of vehicular traffic tended to limit the width of all Mexican streets). It was built round a large central space, which would be used as a market on the last day of their five-day weeks, for which ample accommodation was required, as they had no shops. At one side of this square a stone temple was overshadowing all.

      It was evident that the village had been evacuated in great haste, and the contents of its residences were open for all to take. For the nations of the New World were alike in this, that their doors were not provided with lock or bar. They had a simple law that he who steals dies. It applied equally to a manual thief or a defaulting trustee; and its result was not so much that victims were provided for sacrifice at religious feasts as that the fear of being robbed rarely entered a Mexican mind.

      Cortéz orders were quickly issued, and exactly obeyed.

      The horses were taken into the temple courtyard. The dismounted cavaliers, and about two hundred other Spanish gentlemen, were to join him in the marketplace for rest and food. All others were to camp outside the village. No one was to enter the deserted houses on any pretext whatever.

      It was a decision of honour and prudence, and most fortunate in its results.

      Far more rapidly than the Spaniards moved, the news went forward to Cempoalla of what they did, and influenced the reception which would be theirs.

      Having arranged this, and sent out watchful pickets on every side, Cortéz could turn his thoughts to his own affairs.

      He called to Diaz, who came out of the temple courtyard, where he had been assuring himself that the horses would have good care. "Bernal," he said, "will you ask Dona Marina that she shall join me here?"

      Diaz stared for a moment at the title of courtesy that the Governor used, but there could be no doubt of who was meant, and he obeyed without reluctance. For Dona Marina, as her name would be from that day, was liked by all, and her essential value was understood.

      Those who had ridden or walked for long hours in increasing heat were glad to stretch themselves at ease on cloaks which had been spread on the dusty ground. The cavaliers of most account sat with Cortéz thus, and when Marina appeared he made a place for her at his right hand.

      He drew her into the discussion which went on as to the nature of this new land. Was it everywhere as beautiful, as prolific, as that which was round them now? Was this a typical example of its villages, or its towns? Was the fact that it had been so completely vacated to be taken as a sign of timidity only, or in a more ominous way?

      Her replies, in tentative, halting Spanish, had the attention not only of those in that circle, but of other cavaliers who crowded around in increasing numbers.

      She did not understand all that was asked, nor could she always make her own meaning clear. But they understood that there were cities yet to be seen beside which this was no more than a paltry slum: that the country was of varied luxuriance of which they had not yet seen either best or worst: and that they need have little fear of anything that the Totonacs thought or did. They would be more than equal to them. What they had to dread was the remoter shadow of Aztec power.

      "For what you have done this morning," she said, "the Emperor will know tonight."

      They thought they must have misunderstood her in that. Was not the Aztec capital two hundred miles away? Jeronimo was called to make interpretation sure. But they found that there had been no mistake. A news runner would be trained to go at a high speed for a few miles, and he would then pass word or a pictured scroll to another, who would continue at the same pace.

      Even burdened, these speeds would be maintained. If the Emperor should desire saltwater fish, or fruit from a distant province, must it not be on his table on the day on which it was caught or plucked?

      Cortéz saw that this was not a picture to raise the confidence of those who heard, however vital it might be that he should be truly informed. He said: "Senors, I have said that the houses of this village shall not be entered, but I have a mind to explore the temple myself, and those who will, to a short count, may come with me, though we shall touch nothing, even to cast down the idols that we may see."

      He went into the temple, with Marina, and eight or nine of the most intimate of his cavaliers, and they saw little that had not been similar, though on a larger scale, in the temple of Tabasco, which they had cleansed of its heathen gods.

      There was the same cold stone of pavement and walls, the same images, which seemed grotesque to their eyes, besides being of Satanic wickedness, as they believed.

      There was the same profusion of flowers, hanging in brilliant garlands, cunningly woven in colour patterns that were unrivalled in the countries from which they came. They were so fresh that it was evident that they must have been woven that day, showing how recent the desertion of the village had been.

      Nothing of novelty or surprise would have been seen, had not Cortéz' curiosity led him to penetrate to rooms in the rear of the temple, where its priests dwelt.

      Here again the furnishings, though they might be strange to European eyes, were little different from others which they had seen before. Until they entered the kitchen, they were no more than casually intrigued by the beauty of a silver ewer, or the quaint carving of knife-handle or pipe. But here they saw that which stirred them to exclamations of horror, which Marina heard at first with a puzzled frown, and then with an expressionless face, as she realised the inexplicable depth of a feeling she could not share.

      It was no more nor less than a joint that hung from a hook of the ceiling - obviously a human ham.

      Why, she wondered, should they be excited by that? It could not have belonged to any relation or friend of theirs. Its cream-brown skin was obvious proof of that.

      Yet excited they were, to a degree which might, as she was able to realise, have led them to make unprovoked attack upon the priests, or indeed any of the inhabitants of the village, had they appeared at that moment - or, at least, if provocation there were, it was something she was unable to understand. It was plainly absurd!

      And yet, the feeling that they expressed was so violent, and so sincere, that she realised that nothing she would be likely to say or do would alienate her from these friends, who were strangers still, so much as to let them understand that it was causeless to her.

      It gave her a cold fear of what hidden perils there might be in the alliance she was about to make. Would she dare to discuss this outburst with the one to whom she should in future be so closely united? Dare to challenge him to give a reasoned reply?

      Perhaps it would be better to talk it over first with Jeronimo. She could express herself so much more freely in the Tabascan tongue, which they both knew.

      While she was agitated by these thoughts, they left the temple, and she soon had a more immediate ordeal to face, of terror to be concealed and be overcome.

      Cortéz said to her kindly: "You have walked all morning. You must be weary. You shall ride behind me, as I should have said before now."

      As he spoke, the black monster he was accustomed to ride was brought out from the courtyard.

      It jerked its head in an impatient way. It pulled at the leading-rein. It opened a huge mouth, showing teeth such as even the deadly puma could not display. And how small was a puma beside this monster of shining jet! A loud unearthly sound came from its throat.

      All morning it had been restrained to a walking pace. Now it reared on its hind legs, rising to a most menacing height. What would happen should it break loose from that slender cord?

      Now it was almost on them. But Cortéz showed no sign of fear. He stepped forward, stroking its neck. She half forgot her own fear in admiration of what he did. He was more like a god than a man!

      She knew that well-bred girls did not show fear. But what girl had ever had such a test as this?

      She said: "I have only walked. I am not tired at all."

      That was sense. She had not run a yard. She could walk all day. Anyone could.

      But he did not seem to understand. He had gained the saddle now, in one springing motion, though he was in full armour except for his unhelmeted head.

      He stooped toward her, stretching out an inviting arm. He said, with sudden realisation: "Help her up, Diaz. She has never ridden before."

      Soon she was mounted behind him, sitting sideways, her arm round the cold corselet, her heart beating in a way that she hoped that he did not hear.

      He said: "I should have thought of it before." He looked ahead to the coming night. Who would wish to have a weary bride, who had toiled for the whole day in the heat of a dusty road?

      But walking meant little to those who had been born to a land where no beasts were tamed.

      It was good fortune that the charger was not allowed to move faster than men will do on a burdened way.

Chapter 20

Cempoalla

      The sun was low when they came to a river over which there was no bridge, and which was too deep to wade.

      Its crossing must evidently be left to the next day.

      Cortéz ordered that a camp should be made. He was busy with many details, for he was one who would leave nothing to chance, and few things to the discretion of other men.

      There was to be search up and down the river bank for boats, or for a possible ford which would not be too deep for the horses to splash across.

      There was to be felling of trees for rafts, for which there would be almost certain need.

      Marina found opportunity to talk to Jeronimo, and determined to clear the enigma that vexed her mind.

      She said: "There was part of a woman's leg hanging in the priest's kitchen. Why did they mind that? You might have thought it was their own mother's by the fuss they made. I almost thought they were mad."

      Her words were less puzzling to him than they would have been to any other Spaniard there, he having lived for eight years in a land where such uses prevailed; but they were still shocking to hear: He said: "Do you not feel that the killing of men for food is a very horrible thing?"

      She answered: "But of course you know that it isn't done! She wasn't killed to eat, she was being eaten because she had had to be killed, which is an utterly different thing. She may have been a thief, or even an adulteress, for all we know! We know that everyone dies sooner or later. We can't make a fuss about those we didn't know when they were alive. And most ways of dying are worse than that."

      He said: They would have killed and eaten me when I was wrecked eight years ago, if I hadn't escaped. Do you defend that?"

      "I'm glad you got away. But I don't see what complaint you would have had. You can't say that if you come to a strange land the people there are obliged to keep you alive as a slave. They're under no obligation to you."

      "You should put such ideas out of your mind, now that you have accepted the Christian faith."

      "I don't see that. Your God - no, I'll say our God. I know I'm a Christian now - cooks people for ever, after they are dead. I should think if He finished them off, and ate them, they'd be grateful for that."

      "But you forget that there is a way of salvation open to all."

      She did not pursue that argument, having found on other issues, that it was best to accept what she was told of the Christian creed. She opened attack on another front. She said: "Do you remember the battle at Tabasco? I walked through the men that were killed while they were burying them. It was a horrible sight. I've seen men sacrificed several times, but never saw anything like that before. Your cannon balls had knocked them to pieces. Some of their insides were half out. They must have died horribly, and some of them may have lived for hours. What do you say about that?"

      "It is inevitable when a battle is fought."

      "But you know that, though a lot of you got hurt, there were only two killed. You know why that was, and you can't say it isn't the better way."

      He was almost silenced by that. He knew that the Spaniards thought that it had been their own prowess, and their defensive armour, that had protected their lives, or they might say that it was the overruling mercy of God, but he knew that none of these explanations was entirely true.

      Throughout all Mexico it was the custom of warfare to capture rather than to kill. Captured men must expect to be killed and eaten, which could be done at future dates. Men fought to obtain captives, and to defend themselves from the same fate.

      This difference of objective had been very disadvantageous to the Tabascans, and had contributed materially to their defeat.

      Men who died in battle were not eaten; those who met that fate were ceremoniously killed by the priests, - with some qualifications, applying to private feasts.

      Every year of her life, from early childhood, Marina had been present at the annual religious festival in Mexico, at which human sacrifice always occurred. But her dominant recollections were not of horror and blood, they were of music, and the colours and fragrance of many flowers.

      These half-civilised Spaniards looked at things in perverse ways. They distorted facts.

      Not that the facts were beyond reproach. The many wars that the Aztecs had waged upon weaker neighbours, by which they had established an empire similar to, though not of the extent of, that of Rome at its greatest day, had brought them many prisoners, so that there had been no lack of victims for festival days; and there had been some, even among the Aztecs themselves, who had said that the prospect of securing such victims had been the purpose for which such quarrels had been provoked.

      But this did not alter the basic fact that it was a better method of warfare - more civilised and more humane - to capture your enemy alive, give him the enjoyment of being fattened, and then kill him in an almost instantaneous manner, than to smash him in ugly random ways with great balls of lead, and leave him lying about for his friends to shovel him into a ditch on the next day.

      She faced the fact that the Spaniards were not of her standard of civilisation. In their daily habits there were some things that were coarse and repellent to her, as they would never be likely to guess. They were so arrogantly sure of themselves - and of their religion, that they would thrust on all.

      And that religion was like themselves. It was better than that of her own people. She recognised that. But it was also worse. There was discordant beauty and ugliness, and the Spaniards appeared to accept both with equal certainty and satisfaction ... ... Yet, if you shut your eyes to its darker side, it was a very beautiful thing. Jeronimo had taught her half the Spanish she knew in eulogies of his own faith, and his earnestness had not been without influence. ... But it was growing dusk, and there was another adventure to face before midnight came... ...

      There have been numberless unions in the world's history of men and women of alien lands: there have been fewer in which the difference has been of a racial width, as when European weds with Chinese, or either with one of pure Negro blood, and it is unlikely that such, even when they have endured, have resulted in harmony of the closest kind.

      But it may be doubted whether, in the whole history of the human race, there had been a union to compare with this. It was not merely that the two had come together from two separate civilisations. Each was almost entirely ignorant of what the other's civilisation was. It was not only that their codes of conduct, their conception of honour and dishonour, of right and wrong were fundamentally different. They did not even know what those differences were.

      Cortéz knew no more of what life was like in the Aztec capital than Marina could imagine of the domestic life of Madrid.

      Even in the relationship which was now established between them there were mutual misconceptions as to what its status was understood to be.

      Cortéz considered that he had taken an attractive mistress from the native population, as Spaniards who did not intend to marry until they should return with rich profits of adventure to their ancestral homes, or who had left wives behind, thought it natural to do. Certainly, it was a sin; but it was a venial one, which a light penance would condone, particularly if the concubine should thereby be brought into the Christian fold.

      Cortéz honestly believed that by mentioning that he had a wife he had made the nature of the contract clear, and that he was dealing with a slave (of whatever status) in a way which custom allowed. A man could not have more than one wife. That was obvious. When he had mentioned her existence, he had made the remaining possibility clear.

      But to Marina it was not clear at all. She did not regard it as inevitable that a man should have only one wife. On the contrary, though polygamy was not common among the Aztecs, for the obvious reason that men and women were about equally numerous, it was legal, and it involved no dishonour at all, either to the first wife, or those who might subsequently join the home.

      But the obligations of marriage were very strictly observed, and the penalty of deviation was death. Divorce, under any circumstances, was very difficult to obtain. Irregular unions with certain definite exceptions were not recognised or condoned.

      Aztec marriage was preceded by public elaborate ceremony. Cortéz did not know that. Neither did Marina know that Spanish marriage involved any ceremony at all. She did not know that she had not acquired an equal position to that of the absent wife. She did not know that the absent wife would have any cause for resentment against herself.

      In fact, what these two did not know of each other's customs, or social laws, was a much longer catalogue than that which they did.

      Even if those of Cortéz had been explained to his new partner, they would have been puzzling to her. She was not familiar with the idea of venial sins, or laws which were not obeyed.

      Her people had civil laws, which differed in many details from those of Western Europe; but they were generally obeyed.

      They were administered by judges independent of priest and king, with impartial justice, but pitiless severity. Those who broke them must expect to be handed over to the priests, to be sacrificed on the next appropriate day. Had such criminals been numerous, there would have been less need to seek other victims by means of war.

      But a God who made laws which his followers were not expected to keep, who could be coaxed to condone or forgive at an easy price! Why should such laws be made, if they were to be derided thus?

      Knowing little of each other's civilisation, and repelled or puzzled by what they did: almost equally confident that their own was the higher form - but Cortéz excelled here, having no moment of doubt at all - they joined in the most intimate of human bonds in the wildest adventure which is recorded in human history - an adventure the results of which would be incredible, if they were not certainly true.

      It was noon of the next day before the little army was assembled on the further bank of the river, some having been rafted across, and some ferried in canoes which had been found, waterlogged and derelict, on the river bank, and hurriedly but skilfully repaired under the direction of one, Martin Lopez, who had been a shipbuilder in earlier years.

      They struck due northward now, taking a beaten road through rich woodlands and fertile plains.

      The woods were alive with game, prodigal of purple grapes, and brilliant with great butterflies, and bright-plumaged birds, and profusion of flowers.

      The heathen Mexicans might be doomed to a final hell, but it seemed that indulgent Heaven gave brief paradise first, with an inconsistency which did not appear to puzzle the Christian invaders' minds.

      As they advanced, they came to enclosed orchards, and fields, and human dwellings, and nose-ringed Indians who were timid, but did not flee.

      Then they were met by the cacique of Cempoalla himself, with twelve of his subordinate officials, to be their escort and guides.

      These were men in loose graceful cotton garments of many colours, belted waists, and nose and earrings of patterned gold, who greeted them with courtesy and respect, but delayed the slow ordeal of translated negotiations till they should come to their journey's end.

      They camped that night under open sky, but advanced next day into a more thickly populated country, where they became surrounded by increasing, friendly, curious crowds.

      Women were among them now - well-dressed women, some of them, gaily bright with rich clothing, jewels, and brilliant flowers.

      They carried long chains of roses, which they threw round the necks of the leading cavaliers, and some, greatly daring, draped the neck of Cortéz slow-pacing charger in the same way.

      Some of them attempted speech with Marina, but their words had no meaning for her, and they made no response when she spoke to them in Aztec tongue.

      So they came to Cempoalla, the houses of which were stuccoed in such a way that they shone silver-bright in the noonday sun, causing the foremost cavaliers to ride back through a scattering crowd, with excited cries that the whole city was solid silver.

      The town was not, in fact, large. It had substantial stone-built houses, and a large central temple, and which was common with these edifices a wide courtyard, with surrounding buildings, spacious enough to accommodate the whole of the little Spanish army, and which was surrendered to their occupation, its religious character not being regarded as an obstacle to secular uses.

      Here, with military precautions that would have been considered needless by a less wary leader - sleepless sentinels patrolling the outer walls and loaded cannon blocking the courtyard entrance - the little army slept.

Chapter 21

Doubtful Allies

      The lord of Cempoalla was a large man, burdened with fat.

      He came down the terrace of his mansion to meet the Spanish leader with an outstretched hand, having learnt that that was the form of greeting the strangers used.

      Cortéz had brought fifty men with him, who had fallen in, twenty-five a side, as he rode up to the steps. There he had dismounted, given his charger to the care of Bernal Diaz, and advanced to meet the Indian chieftain accompanied only by Puerto-Carrero, and the two interpreters.

      Seated in the comparative coolness of an inner room, fragrant with honeysuckle that twined round its open casements, the slow course of a negotiation proceeded in which Cortéz strove with confident and sometimes boastful assurances to secure Totonac support, and their ruler, showing himself to be already frightened of what had been done, hesitated, temporised, and spoke with awe of the Aztec power.

      "Tell him," Cortéz said to Jeronimo, "that I come from the mightiest king that the earth contains, and that these Aztecs of whom he talks can have peace or war as they will. The difference will be to them, not to us. But tell him we come in peace, excepting only that we are the servants of a God who must be obeyed, and we must plant His worship here, even though it be by the argument of the sword. For the gods of the Aztecs are demons, which we are sworn to destroy."

      This speech must be repeated to Marina, and by her translated to the Aztec interpreter, and by him conveyed to his chief in the Totonac tongue.

      The answer came by the same devious route: "That is beyond reason to ask. The gods of the Aztecs are ours also. They send sunlight and rain. To offend them would be our death."

      Before a reply could be made to this protest, it became evident that Marina was being pressed with questions to which she was giving her own replies. Exchanges became animated and swift before Jeronimo heard anything which he could understand.

      Cortéz was content for this to proceed, making a true guess that Marina would say nothing to diminish respect for the Spanish power, and that some assertions might have more weight if they should come spontaneously from her than if she should appear to be a mere channel of conversation.

      But it was not long before she turned to Jeronimo to say, partly in Spanish, which Cortéz could understand, but more often in Tabascan, as her limitations required: "He says that he is afraid that when the Emperor hears that he has entertained you, after you had been ordered to leave the land, he will send such an army as will seize the best of their young men, and their girls also, to be sacrificed in the usual manner."

      "Tell him," Cortéz replied, "that we will not allow that to happen. It is to prevent such evils that I am here... Ask him what number of warriors his own nation has, who can join us to save themselves."

      The question was more easily asked than answered. The Aztec knowledge of mathematics was in some respects actually superior to that of Europe, and the Totonacs may not have been too ignorant to comprehend such calculations with ease, but their methods of notation were naturally different from those of Europe, and may be said to have been superior to that of the Romans, but inferior to the Arabic which the Spaniards used.

      Cortéz was led to understand that they could raise a hundred thousand men. A neighbouring nation of Tlascala, which had never submitted to the Aztecs, was far stronger than they. He knew already from Marina that this was true. What he did not know was whether the Tlascalans would be any friendlier than the Aztecs to him.

      But he replied boldly that these matters were of no importance. It was for their own sakes that he must know who desired the friendship of Spain.

      He had a rendezvous with his ships, which he must first keep, and after that he would know how to protect those who looked to him, and the Christian God.

      For the moment, boldness prevailed. Totonac professions of friendship were confirmed by the supply of abundant provisions and costly gifts.

      Returning to the temple camp, Cortéz asked his interpreters how far he could rely upon the assurances he had received.

      Marina said: "I told them that you would require four hundred bearers by when you will march tomorrow. If they are here, it will mean that they are more anxious for your goodwill than afraid of what Montezuma will do."

      "Four hundred! Do we require so many, having our own Indians?"

      "Yes. It is strange to these people, as it would be to ours, that you all carry as much as you do. All burdens with us are borne by porters trained for the work. If you continue to do that, you will be regarded with less respect."

      "Then you have done well."

      The next morning, four hundred porters were there. Even the Cuban Indians were loaded lightly from that day. The Spaniards marched with essential weapons alone. It increased the comfort and the military efficiency of the little army, and conformed to the etiquette of the land. They had good reason to thank Marina for that.

      They set out to cover the twelve miles that separated them from the sea, and the waiting ships.

Chapter 22

Challenge

      The fleet lay in its new anchorage, protected by a cape that projected from the northward coastline, forming a barrier from the dreaded northerly gales.

      On the eminence above them was a second Totonac town, to which its inhabitants, who had fled in fear, were returning timidly. They found their possessions undisturbed, and confidence grew.

      The army had not long arrived when a litter appeared, bearing the Cempoalla cacique, who had decided that the nearer he could keep to his new allies the greater his safety would be.

      With its new retinue of bearers, the army had become a total of more than a thousand men. There was no accommodation for them in the little town, apart from its central market place, where many must camp, as they had done elsewhere.

      The square was crowded with Spaniards and Indians, among whom Cortéz stood, with Marina at his side, giving orders and receiving reports, when there was commotion at its western approach.

      They saw five men advancing, before whom the Totonacs gave way with frightened respect, while the Spaniards themselves were contemptuously disregarded. The five halted in the centre of the square, with a group of attendants behind them.

      They called out, in a tone in which men might order dogs, and the cacique of Cempoalla, and some officials of the town, hastened obsequiously forward.

      Cortéz, standing in apparent indifference, but warily watchful, noticed that these newcomers were different from the Totonacs in aspect and garb. They made no show of force. They were richly dressed. They were garlanded with flowers. They were cooled by the fans of attendant slaves.

      Their aspects were those of masters, too assured of themselves to need demonstration of strength.

      Cortéz asked: "Who are they?"

      "They are Aztecs," Marina replied. "They will have come to collect the tribute for Montezuma."

      So they might have done, but their errand was more than that. It had been true that everything which occurred had been observed by the distant Aztec emperor, and he sent these men to proclaim his will and impose the penalty that insubordination required.

      "We had better go nearer," Cortéz said, "you can tell me what it is that is being said, which is making our fat friend tremble with fear."

      So they did, Marina said: "Montezuma is displeased that they have shown hospitality to you, after he had issued orders that you should leave. He requires twenty young men or women to be surrendered for sacrifice, as a condition of his overlooking the offence."

      "They have the insolence to say that? Where is Jeronimo? There must be other things said and done."

      It is a disadvantage to have to be angry in a strange tongue, but he made his demeanour clear.

      "You must have these men," he told the frightened cacique, laid by the heels at once. You say you cannot do that? Do you mean to send twenty of your own people to death because you have been friendly to us? You would lose our friendship for ever. You will either arrest these impudent men, or I will leave you without protection. If you are my friends, you must resent an insult to me."

      The astonished envoys partly understood, but their confidence did not abate. They were too aware of the Aztec power. They looked at the Spanish leader with contempt, and found their glances returned in the same way.

      And, in the end, the one who was sure of himself prevailed over those of doubtful minds.

      The astonished Aztecs were seized. They felt the indignity of cords. Bound at wrist and ankle, they were confined in one of the rooms that opened out from the courtyard of the temple which was beside the marketplace, as was the common feature of all towns in this land.

      There they remained till night, at which time Cortéz, thinking that they would be in a less truculent mood, ordered that two of them should be brought before him.

      Marina, having been told before what should be said, did the talking now to men of her own race, who looked humbler than they had done before.

      "The Commander," she said, "who represents a greater king than Montezuma himself, has decided, in his clemency, that you shall be released, and take a message from him.

      "You will say that he regrets that you should have suffered so great an indignity, but it is the natural result of your insult to himself and to his King, who sent him here, on a mission to Montezuma of friendship and peace. Did he not order that we should be left without food in a barren place? But we are still willing to resolve all in a peaceful way. For this end, the Commander will talk to Montezuma himself, as he has always purposed to do.

      "When the Emperor sees that he has let you live, he will understand that there can be friendship and peace... ... Will you take this message to him?"

      "We will report all that has happened, and that we have heard, as it will be our duty to do."

      "Then there is no more to be said."

      Before dawn the two Aztecs were taken on board the sloop, which sailed up the coast, and landed them at a spot of their choice, from which they would be able to return safely to their own land.

      But when morning came, angry Totonac chieftains were at the gates of the temple court, demanding speech with Cortéz at once.

      They encountered firm though polite refusal. No one could enter without his authority. He should be informed. An attempt to pass the guard was met with crossed halberds, and the sight of Christoval de Olid's sword leaving its sheath.

      Common language was meagre, but bare steel could be understood. They waited while de Olid crossed the courtyard to where Cortéz breakfasted with Marina in a chamber he had reserved for his own use.

      He said to her: "Amada, will you find out what the trouble is? I am no lackey to them, to be bustled before I feed."

      She thought she could have told him with one guess, but she went without words, and was soon back, bringing Jeronimo with her, for there might be more explanation to give than her Spanish could undertake.

      She said: "They are wroth because you have let two of the five escape."

      "You allowed that I had done that?"

      "Yes. They had heard. Was I wrong?"

      "Not at all. It could not have been long denied. But why do they fret for that? Yesterday, there were chattering jaws because I would have them seized."

      "So it was, but, it having been done, they think they should have been sacrificed in the usual way. Montezuma will not forgive what has been done. It is certain war. And even their short triumph is spoiled if their captives go."

      "Well, they are gone. They cannot change that. Do they seek to quarrel both with Montezuma and me? They will have full days."

      "They know that the two are gone too far for recall. They would have the other three slaughtered at once, so that their end be sure."

      "Then they have much to learn. Tell them I will see them. Or, at least, three. Tell them I am in a small room, and will not be crushed."

      Marina went back with this word, and brought in three of the caciques, who were inpatient to make complaint, but found that Cortéz was not docile to be rebuked.

      He said: "Ask them this: Was it they or I who proposed that these men should be seized? Is it I who ask them to be my shield, or have they pleaded to me? If I should give them these men to slay and eat, and then sail away in the next hour, would they be content? Or would they think they might be about to fill their bellies at a price they would not be willing to pay?

      "But having asked them those questions, you must be plain to add that they should not sacrifice these men by any bargain with me of whatever kind, either to stay or to go; for it is a thing which my God will not endure."

      After that, Cortéz must be content for some minutes to listen to words that had no meaning for him. The three could talk Aztec, having perhaps been preferred for that reason, so that Marina could speak directly to them, and it seemed that she had more to say than they had to reply; but Cortéz was content, for he saw that they had become frightened men.

      Marina turned to Jeronimo at last, but not to tell him that which he would translate. Now she asked him for any Spanish word she might lack, and so spoke to Cortéz direct, as he would prefer it to be. She said: "You will have no more trouble with them. I have made them fear that you will cast them off like a worn shoe. And I have told them that when you do things which it is not easy to understand, it is then that you have the wisdom that sees ahead."

      Cortéz was pleased at that. He said: "You are strength to me. I know not whether you please me better by night or day."

      He would have kissed her then, had she been of his own race, but he had learned already that she had a reticence far greater than his.

      She was not cold of blood, and what they did together when none was near was their own affair, but before others -. There were many points of manners in which she thought the Spaniards uncouth; but she excused them, as being of a lower culture than hers. Could they help that?

      It remained that they were finer, bolder men than those of her own race. And, for life or death, she had chosen her part with them, which she would not change... ...

      When the envoys had gone in a subdued way, Cortéz said: "I will have no risk. They might sneak them from us, if we continue to keep them here. That would spoil the plan I have; and it would force me to a quarrel here which I do not want... ... They shall be put on to one of the ships."

      That was done in the next hour. Alvarado marched them down to the beach, with forty Spanish swords nakedly displayed around them. They may have wondered why, being gyved as they were, there could be need for as large a guard. Or their minds may have been fuller of unpleasant doubts, as to the fate to which they were being led.

      But, as to that, they had no occasion for fear. Cortéz saw them on the next day, and released them in the same manner as he had done the others, sending further messages to their emperor that he desired friendship with him, though he had no occasion to fear his power, and he was releasing them as further evidence of his goodwill.

      He did not expect that such friendship could ever be. The Aztec power, by all that he could learn, was too great, too arrogant, too intolerant, for that to be a probable thing, and his own belief that he had Heaven's mandate to force salvation upon them gave aggressive complexion to all his plans. But he thought that he was taking a course which would produce hesitation, and hence delay. And on that anticipation he was correct, as he would so frequently be.

Chapter 23

The City Of Vera Cruz

      As the days passed and there was no sign of retaliation from the outraged Aztec power, the Totonac chieftains' confidence in Spanish support naturally increased. And in that confidence, or the courage of desperation - for they could not hope that Mexico would forgive, if it should have the power to enforce its will - they resolved to accept the pledges that Cortéz gave, and to rely upon the protection of Spain.

      When they were committed to this course. He announced that there was a simple condition. They must swear allegiance to Spain, and they would have no reason to fear. Soon all the caciques of the little nation had taken the required oath. Spain had acquired a legalised footing in the new continent.

      And Cortéz made it clear at once that she had come to stay.

      He said he proposed to build a city beside the harbour where his fleet lay. Would they help him with materials and labour?

      They made no objection to that. How could they? They may have seen that they would only be changing one tyranny for another. But they did not want Cortéz to go, leaving them naked to the vengeance of Aztec power.

      So the council which had elected itself further down the coast was to have the town which it had been appointed to rule. Its boundaries were marked out on a wide waste plain overlooking the harbour. Its public buildings rose with a magic speed. Cortéz could not have built it in those few weeks by the hands of the thousand men, more or less, white and brown, who obeyed his will. But the Totonacs gave a more numerous help. And all men laboured alike on the task which might be decisive for their own prosperity, their own lives. His own hands became rough with the handling of stone and beam.

      Private houses might not be numerous within the girth of its barricades, but there were strong storehouses in a central fort, a meeting-hall and other buildings for public use, and a church of somewhat heathen design (could that be avoided?) for the worship of Europe's God.

      It was while this building proceeded that Cortéz was gratified to hear of the approach of a deputation from the Aztec Emperor.

      Marina, having to interpret again, found herself listening to those whom she had seen at a distance before, but had not expected to encounter at closer range.

      It was in the cacique's residence at Cempoalla that he had received them, they having halted in that city, in evident anticipation that he would meet them there, which he thought it prudent to do - and the more so because the reception hall of his new city was incomplete.

      He met them accompanied only by Puerto-Carrero and Montejo and the interpreters. He saw two young men, very richly attired, and of a haughtiness of demeanour which appeared to be normal to them, rather than directed against himself. They took the foremost of the offered seats, four older men giving them that precedence.

      Marina said, in a toneless way, before the conversation began: "Do not show surprise, for they notice all, but the two younger men are nephews of Montezuma, and the others are among the greatest noblemen in the land. It is a condescension to send them here, such as has never happened before, and is almost beyond belief. I suppose they may have come not only to do honour to you, but to take back reports which the Emperor will not hesitate to believe."

      While she spoke, slaves entered the room, and spread out an array of presents more numerous, various, and costly than Montezuma had sent before.

      Were they sent in a spirit of real friendship, or in expectation of an equivalent munificence? It would have been hard to believe.

      Were they an evidence of fear? Did weakness seek to propitiate strength with tributary gifts? To credit that would have been to disbelieve all the evidences of those who trembled at the Aztec name.

      Or was Aztec wealth so great that these garments of jewelled featherwork, exquisite in workmanship and design, these wheels of silver, these bucklers of beaten gold, were mere trifles of no account, to be thrown contemptuously at the feet of a begging knave?

      Cortéz received them with courteous indifference, which concealed a thought that they might be sufficient in themselves to pay the whole cost of the expedition, and to justify all that he had done. Tomorrow they would be catalogued, valued, weighed, and entered in the complicated books of account which he so carefully, so scrupulously, had continued to keep.

      Now he gave the word that some presents which he had had in readiness should be brought forward in courteous response. Some of these may have been of workmanship or materials new to Aztec eyes, but nothing could disguise their relative paltriness. Five of the envoys regarded them with coldly appreciate eyes, but in those of the sixth, a lean old man in the rear, Cortéz caught an expression of sardonic contempt which had been unmistakable, though it was as brief as an eyelid's wink... ... Then the elder of the two younger men began to speak.

      He ignored Marina, looking straight at Cortéz, and speaking as one who has no doubt he is understood. But afterwards he remained silent while she translated what she had heard, and he must turn to her after that, in a cold way, to hear Cortéz' reply.

      Marina translated: "The prince says that his uncle, Montezuma, the greatest Emperor in the world, has sent him and his companions to demonstrate his regard for you master, the Spanish King, for whom these trifling presents are meant.

      "And he thanks you for rescuing his messengers when they were in danger of death from local vermin, with whom he will know how to deal on a future day.

      "But he is divided between distress and surprise that you have countenanced their rebellion against their acknowledged lord, which your king surely would not approve.

      "At the same time, he recognises that you are not plebeian men. Your coming was foretold by his own gods, and that you would be of the same blood as himself.

      "For these reasons he will delay, until your departure, the chastisement that his rebellious vassals must feel; but after that they may be sure that it will heavy and swift."

      There was a short silence before Cortéz replied. His audacities were never randomly planned, and there had been some things said - and some left in silence - with implications not easy to read. Then he said, speaking directly to Marina, a difference of procedure which might be insult, or have no significance at all: "You can tell them on my own monarch's behalf, that I value their emperor's friendship highly, and appreciate the munificence of the gifts he sends. But, as I shall shortly be paying him the visit which is the purpose for which I came, I will say no more at this time. When we shall meet, he may be confident that all misunderstandings will be removed."

      Marina required some repetition, and some aid from Jeronimo, before she had every word of this clear for translation into the Aztec tongue, but when she addressed him at last, the Aztec prince must turn his eyes upon her, which he did with an aloof curiosity which he did not conceal.

      He heard the reply with a cold disapproval. "I have not said that the Emperor will receive you," he said, turning his glance directly upon Cortéz, as he had done before. "He has twice declined."

      Marina did not wait to translate this. She replied at once: "But that is the purpose for which my lord Cortéz came, and it is one which he cannot change."

      "What is that?" Cortéz asked.

      "He says you have been refused permission to go, and I have told him it is a purpose you will not change."

      "That is well. You will hold to that."

      The eyes of the Aztec prince were now on Marina with a cold hostility which few of her race would have been equal to meet. He asked: "Who are you?"

      "I am the interpreter."

      "You are Aztec born?"

      "Yes."

      "I would have your name, and your place of birth."

      There was a moment's silence while their wills fought. She did not know what tale her mother had told to account for her disappearance, but she made a sure guess that it had all been contrived to give the inheritance to her brother, and that would have been impossible without legal proof of her own death.

      She wished no ill to her mother (and certainly none to her half-brother) whatever might have been done or intended to her.

      She said: "I cannot tell you that."

      She was aware of the blank amazement that she had roused in the minds not only of him to whom she spoke, but of his companions, who had certainly never heard such a reply given before to a prince of the royal blood.

      The prince controlled his wrath, as one who would not be vexed by an insect's bite.

      He said: "When you come to the knife, as you soon will, you may expect that your death will be very slow."

      Marina received this with no sign of response, for in such controls she was as well practised as he.

Chapter 24

Triumph Of The True Faith

      The Aztec embassy withdrew in an attitude of cool aloofness, which certainly gave no assurance of future friendship, but, whatever its purpose may have been, and whatever might be the subsequent action of the Emperor whose wishes were so boldly defied, its effect upon the Totonacs was almost incredulous amazement, with an increase of confidence in their new protectors, which Cortéz encouraged by making an armed progress through the country, in the course of which he reconciled an internal quarrel which had weakened the national unity, and increased his popularity by the strict discipline with which he restrained his troops in their relations with the native population.

      There had been difficulties in such control, even while they had been occupied in the exhausting toil of the building of Vera Crux. To maintain order in idleness might have been beyond his power.

      The realisation of this difficulty caused him to have an unwelcome doubt of whether the Aztec policy might be even subtler than his own. Did they leave him unattacked that he might have time to alienate his allies by the excesses into which idle troops are so likely to fall? Or did they hold back, so that he might be induced to march inland to his own destruction, leaving the barricades of the city that he had built, and the refuge of the waiting ships?

      His procession through the Totonac country was intended both to occupy the troops, to gain surer knowledge of the numbers and qualities of his native allies, and to provide a demonstration which might induce the Aztecs to attack him if such should be their disposition, for he saw that, if a trial of strength were inevitable, it might be better for them to come to him.

      It roused no sign of hostility. He had been forbidden to enter the Aztec territory, and had replied that he intended to do so. Were they waiting to see what he would do, in caution or in contempt?

      He had encouraged their vassals to revolt, and to refuse the tribute they were required to pay, and the Aztecs had taken it lying down. But here again they had made it plain that they did not accept the position as permanent. They would deal vengeance upon the rebels when he had gone.

      It was a position which could not last.

      And the necessity to enforce discipline had become acute. An example must be made. He had given out several weeks before that the penalty would be death for theft or rape, and when, after he had made camp on the second day, a complaint reached him that a soldier had taken a couple of pheasants forcibly from a nearby villager, which the man could not deny, he gave a reluctant order to de Olid that he should hang.

      Alvarado dined with him, and others in his tent that night, and he asked: "Did any murmur that Morla was hanged?"

      "Not so that it would be easy to hear," Alvarado replied, "Christoval told them that there would be room for more than one on the tree. At least, so I heard, for the man was strung up before I happened to pass."

      "It was an order I was most reluctant to give. There is not a man we can spare."

      Alvarado laughed. "It might have been worse. I was just in time."

      "In time for what?"

      "Why to cut him down, as I had no doubt that you would wish me to do."

      There was a blaze of anger in his commander's eyes which even Alvarado did not find it easy to meet. But next moment it was gone. Cortéz said quietly: "You may have been right in that. But should I give such an order again, I shall mean it to be fully obeyed."

      He reflected that Morla would be a living warning to others. He hoped he had been hanged long enough for his throat to be very sore. He, at least, would be likely to be an honest man from that day.

      They got back to Cempoalla on the following afternoon, and were met by its cacique, with an Aztec-speaking companion at his side, by which medium he explained that he had a presentation to make which would demonstrate the sincerity of Totonac friendship, and increase its intimacy for future days.

      "He says," Marina interpreted, "that it is evident that some of your officers who have no women at all must be needing wives. To achieve this need, the daughters of eight of the noblest caciques of the land have volunteered, and will be given to you for distribution at your discretion. They will be richly endowed, and each will have a retinue of three female slaves who have been chosen with care."

      Cortéz answered: "It is nobly intended, and cannot fail to draw us more closely together. Our marriage customs are not precisely yours, but I am sure that there will be those of my officers who will be both free and willing to take advantage of such a gift. But there is one thing I must say: they cannot wed any who have not first adopted the Christian faith."

      He saw that the cacique was not pleased by the translation of this reply. After some short exchanges, Marina said: "He thinks that there may be no difficulty about that, though they should not be coerced. But he says that there is a general feeling that the gods of this land should not be disturbed by the God of yours. He is supreme in Spain, and with that He should be content.

      It was a challenge Cortéz was in no mood to decline. He had already resolved to make immediate preparations to march into the interior to whatever fate he might meet, and, for this desperate venture to have a fair prospect, the blessing of Heaven was a necessity.

      How could it be better secured than by the conversion of heathen men?

      "Tell him," he said, "that our God is not only God of Spain. He is supreme and universal, and others, if they exist at all, are evil demons whose images should be broken.

      If he would be relieved from the terror of Montezuma, he must abandon the Mexican gods for One Who is much stronger than they."

      But the exhortation was ill received. Spanish fanaticism met with a superstition equally sincere, equally stubborn, equally terrified of the unseen powers that its imagination conceived.

      Marina did what she could, using the argument of her own conversion, and the conviction to which she had come that Christianity was the better faith. But she said that she could make no progress at all.

      Cortéz said: "There is more eloquence needed than mine. Let Father Olmedo be called."

      So he was, and Marina did her best to convey the substance of the priest's exhortations from the Spanish that she imperfectly followed to the Aztec tongue. But whatever it became when it had been rendered again into Totonac had no potency to convince the obstinate heathen mind.

      And by now the knowledge that the issue had been so acutely raised had spread to the soldiers, who thronged the marketplace, and the temple courtyard.

      They looked at the images, grotesque to them, which were sacred to native eyes; and at the bloodstained altars, which roused a natural horror impossible for the Totonacs to comprehend. A cry rose to put an end to this demon-worship, and to establish the purer faith.

      Against this threat a hostile crowd was gathering with loud outcries, and the menace of swords and bows.

      It had not been Cortéz' intention to bring such a crisis at this moment, but, they all being as they were, it was bound to come, and he made no effort to still the storm.

      The disputants had left the cacique's residence for the marketplace as the quarrel developed, and there he suddenly found, that, though priest and interpreter were still at his side, he was surrounded by Spanish swords.

      Marina was not talking religion now. She said: "If you cannot control the crowd, if but one blow be struck, or one arrow shot, you and your companions will be slain without mercy or delay. Can you not see that it is a matter for the gods to determine between themselves. If the Spaniards cast them down, it is not on you that their vengeance will fall.

      "The Spaniards are resolved now. They will break the altars or die, and if you should be able to kill them (which you would not, it would be your own people who would bleed) where would you be on the next day? You would have the Aztecs here. Would your gods save you from them? Are they not Aztec gods? Cannot you see which god is most likely to be useful to you... ... The Governor says that you can address the crowd. You are to tell them to keep still, and to watch how little your gods can do for themselves, and your life will be forfeit if you shall fail."

      So he did; and with such final success that a sullen, appalled crowd watched without intervention while their sacred images were shattered, and their altars were broken down.

      Father Olmedo took possession of the temple. He exorcised its demons. He consecrated it to a better use.

      After that, could not the Spaniards go forward, whether to conquest or martyrdom, with the certain blessing of God?

Chapter 25

Appeal To Spain

      As Cortéz approached the new harbour he saw that the eleven ships had become twelve. A cavalier of Spain, Sanceda by name, in a tiny vessel, smaller even than the sloop that de Leon commanded, had sailed after him, seeking to join whatever his fortunes might prove to be.

      He had followed the coast until he had seen the sails of the fleet he sought, and the Spanish flag. He brought two chargers, and eleven companions, all of whom were content to swear fealty to the Governor of the new land, and augment his power.

      It was not a large reinforcement, but it was welcome in itself, especially in its two horses, and to Totonac eyes it may have been significant of the fact that they had not yet seen the extent of the strangers' strength.

      To Cortéz, the time of decisive action had come. He had converted a whole nation to God. He had won a new realm for Spain. And he had done it all with no more than a few hundred men - and a great faith in God, in Spain, and, perhaps not least, in himself.

      And now it was clearly time to ignore Velásquez, and report what he had done directly to Madrid, which was the unlifting shadow upon his rear. Madrid could ruin him. Jealousy or greedful intrigue at the Royal Court might obtain the signature which no Spaniard would disobey.

      Now he chose the most seaworthy ship of his little fleet for the long Atlantic voyage. He wrote an account of the rich new land which he was acquiring for God and Spain. He was not too modest concerning his own exploits, or what he intended to do; but he wrote in the humble language which the etiquette of the occasion required, and which his education and legal training had made him adroit to do. He chose the two on whom he had already bestowed the greatest honours - Puerto-Carrero and Montejo - to be his representatives at the Spanish Court.

      This was a most discreet selection. One was his personal friend, a man of moderation, and discretion; the other had been an adherent of the Cuban Governor, whom he had won over to loyalty to himself. Both of them were men of rank in their own land, who would have no difficulty in gaining hearing at the Spanish Court, even to the ear of the King.

      With scrupulous equity, he assessed the value of the treasure which had been gathered, and set aside a full fifth, which was the usual tribute paid by the adventurers of the New World to the Spanish Crown.

      But he was not content with that, he called a general assemblage, and told them that he was adding the whole of his own share of the spoil, as an evidence of his loyalty; and he invited others to do the same.

      "Comrades," he went on, "we are about to set out to secure a new dominion for God and Spain. What we have acquired now may be almost naught beside that which will be ours in the later days. But there is one thing on which all will depend at last. We must have the King's license for what we do. We must be sure that others will not be sent to reap that which our hazards and toils have won.

      "Now the shares that should go to each of you are not much, when they are considered apart, but if they should be in one pile they would be such as a monarch would not despise.

      "I am sending the whole of my own share in humble loyalty to the King, and I ask you to do the same.

      "But you will understand that I only ask, I do not command. Those who do not approve will have their shares set scrupulously aside, and they will have no censure from me."

      He ended here, being one who would not continue words when he had finished that which he had to say, and was answered by an acclamation of assent, in which those who were silent were overlooked.

      After that, a document was prepared which all must sign if they were willing to relinquish in this manner the gains already won, for the prospect of a more prosperous future, and it may be considered evidence of their confidence both in themselves and in their leader's advice that there was not a single soldier whose name was not signed upon it.

      But it may be considered also that, when the proposal had once been made, it would have been a gesture of disloyalty both to King and Governor to have refused to accept it. That all men did not sign willingly may be conclusively inferred from an occurrence of the next week.

      But, for the moment, there was no dissenting voice, there was no evidence of dissatisfaction on any ground, as preparations went on for the ship to sail, and for the inland march on which Cortéz was resolved.

      To his own letter to the King, a petition from his officers and from the officials of the new 'city' was added, begging humbly that the authority of their Governor should be confirmed; and the envoys went aboard with a last injunction that they should not call at any intervening port, till they should drop anchor in Cadiz bay.

      Unfortunately, though they intended to obey the spirit, they did not observe the letter of this instruction, or important subsequent events would have gone differently.

      Montejo did not wish to visit Velásquez, being now committed to Cortéz' interests, and the vessel steered its course along Cuba's northern coast, in accordance with the instructions it had received; but that brought it past Marien, near to which Montejo owned a plantation, which he wished to visit, and so they anchored there for a few hours, and during this time a sailor deserted, and made his way overland to St. Jago, where his talk brought him into the presence of the Governor, who thus had his first news of the expedition.

      Enraged at learning that a vessel had been sent direct to Spain, in contempt of his own authority, he despatched his best two available ships, to double the island at its eastern end, and arrest, by force if necessary, the rebel vessel, as he considered it to be.

Chapter 26

Treason

      Those who had volunteered for this wildly hazardous invasion of the New World were of varied virtues and vices, but there was one quality, that of stubborn courage, which all might claim, or they would not have been there. All of them - except the priests.

      They had brought more than a dozen priests, whom they considered to be more important than their swords, and as necessary as they.

      Men of boldly adventurous dispositions do not supply the church with its most numerous recruits. They may have other enthusiasms, such as cause them to imperil life for the conversion of heathen men. Father Olmedo was of this kind, and so were others who were ministering to the spiritual needs of the little army; but there was at least one among them who was of less resolute mind.

      Father Juan Diaz told himself that he was not a coward. To act as chaplain upon a ship which set out on exploration or trading ventures in unknown seas had not been beyond his choice. But to march into the interior of a hostile land which could marshal a million foes, being no more than a thousand in all, including about forty women, and several hundred of bearers and sundry slaves, he considered to go beyond the bounds of sanity; and it is a conclusion with which many prudent minds would be disposed to agree.

      Priests hear confessions, which are of a sacred privacy. But, even if he would, a priest cannot keep his own mind naked of the knowledge which comes to him in that way.

      Father Juan heard the confessions of Escudero, a cavalier of the lower rank, who had been a paid retainer of the Cuban Governor.

      In the old days, when Velásquez had arrested Cortéz, and he had escaped and fled to sanctuary, it will be remembered that he had been rearrested when he had incautiously strolled a short distance from the shadow of the protecting church. At that time, it had been Escudero who had been the first to leap out upon him. It had been he whose dagger had touched his throat, while others had grasped his arms, and loosed the sword from his side.

      Cortéz had never alluded to this incident afterwards. He had accepted Escudero as a volunteer, as though it were a stranger whose name he took. But the man had the type of mind which will retain grudges until the opportunity of retribution will come, and he could not conceive of others being of different temper. He supposed that, at the best, Cortéz would never show any favour to him. But would he not be advanced by his former lord, if he should return to him with a report of what Cortéz had done, and of the mission that he had sent to Spain?

      It was an idea which the priest put into his mind, at a time when he was already nursing an inward wrath which he must not show at having been obliged to sign his treasure away to the distant king.

      Father Juan saw opportunity, which might be the last, to escape from the very shadow of death. He said: "He has lost his wits. He has become insane with success. It is not a small state, it is an empire he will invade. They will be thousands to one. But to steal away with a few friends in one of the smaller ships-?"

      Escudero saw that, without occasion for further words. But he saw difficulties. It must be secretly done. A crew must be assembled of like mind to himself. Others must not be on the vessel. It must be provisioned for a voyage of uncertain length, which would be ruled by capricious winds.

      Having considered these matters, which appeared to him to be of a daunting total, he went to Father Juan again, and when they had been talked over they became less.

      Father Juan had an agile mind, which a priest requires. He pointed out that the ships were to be left with no more than skeleton crews, which were all that would be required while they rode at anchor. And even these limited numbers were not easily to be made up without direct orders and bitter grumbling. They themselves, being sensible men, might see the wild gamble to be what it was, but most, under their leader's mesmeric influence, saw it differently.

      Father Juan said that the selection of a sufficient number of companions to work the ship could be left to him. He knew who would be glad to go.

      The provisioning also was not a matter of extreme difficulty. Many boats were plying backwards and forwards, as everything was removed from the ships which men would require to take with them on so complete a severance from their base, and which was to be joined by a majority of the seamen, who had previously had all their effects on board.

      So it was contrived, and all went well up to the evening on which the vessel was to slip away when the darkness came. A sufficient minimum crew had been recruited. Sufficient water and stores had been taken aboard for their small muster, on a voyage that should not be long.

      The sun was low in the sky when Escudero, who had been aboard during the day, took a boat for the shore. He asked for Father Juan, telling those who would listen that he had a man sick, who had confession to make.

      That had been the procedure arranged, to enable the priest to join the ship, without causing enquiry to which it might have been hard to reply.

      Father Juan showed some timidity now that the decisive moment had come. He asked: "You are sure you are not suspect?"

      "Yes. That is sure. I have had no doubts of any except Paulo Redes, and I have not allowed him ashore since doubt came."

      "He has wanted to come?"

      "He was urgent about noon, and fertile of reasons, which may have been false or true. But I told him that we had necks which we would not risk. He became quiet after that. He protested his faith, but he is in a cabin with two good men seated between him and the door."

      "Well, let us go."

      They walked down to the waterside together, and were about to enter the waiting boat when the priest, whose eyes had been nervously alert to the significance of surrounding things, drew back with an exclamation of fear.

      "There are too many there!" He said sharply, "Do you see-"

      He was interrupted by a voice behind him: "Father, the Governor requests that you should attend him without delay."

      Though he was a fearful man, he was one of alert wits. He said: "So I should be pleased to do, but I am called to one who is sick. It is a call that is the most sacred of all."

      He had turned now to confront Bernal Diaz, with three others behind him as well armed as himself. Diaz answered with respect, but no change of will: "My orders are that you come with me. I am not to use force if fair words will avail."

      Father Juan made no further reply. He turned and went with them. He would have had no inclination to enter the boat had his will been free, for he had seen that there were more on the deck of Escudero's ship than the total of the crew who should have been there, and he was afraid of what it might mean.

      Escudero had now seen the same thing, but he was not required to change what he had intended to do. Bernal took no notice of him.

      He could condemn himself, if he would, by running away. But where to? And he could not yet be certain of the meaning of what he saw, though he had a cold doubt.

      He got into the boat, in which two men sat await, and they pulled toward the ship.

      The fleet lay in a long line in the channel, with anchors out, bow and stern, riding the tides. He had contrived that he should be put in charge of the vessel at the leeward end of the line, that he might slip cables in the darkness, and have a wind that would take him quickly away.

      He had a panic thought that if he could get those men - but why could they be there - on some pretext to leave the ship - or would force avail? - He would not wait for Father Juan, he would hoist sail at once. Would unready ships be as quick as he? Like his own, they had only skeleton crews. They would have no orders to make instant pursuit.

      But what of the guns ashore? They could soon be swung round from how they were pointing now. Would he - or how long would he - be in danger from them?

      It might be that the Governor had a suspicion - a mere doubt - which he had summoned Father Juan to probe. If that were so, his one hope was in instant flight, for which there might yet be time, if he were bold. He could say that he had orders for what he did.

      The boat passed under the bow of the ship. It left its sunlit side for that which was in shadow, where a rope-ladder hung to the water's edge. He went up it with a show of confidence which he did not feel.

      As he gained the deck, his hand reached for a sword-hilt it did not grip. They were too quick for that.

Chapter 27

The Burning Of The Fleet

      Cortéz said: "They shall have fair trial, however their guilt be clear. They are traitors to Spain, and they would have broken their oaths to me. I will hold court on the ship."

      So it was done.

      Ten men stood before him on the ship's deck, all being shackled, except the priest.

      Cortéz said: "There are too many here. "He looked them over shrewdly, and told four to stand out.

      He said: "Take off their irons," and then to them, when that had been done: "Do not let me hear of you again until it be a good word. ... You can go your ways."

      So they did, with eyes of bewildered relief.

      He looked next at the priest. "Will you own your guilt, speaking truthful words, as a man of God should, or will you say that you were ignorant of what was designed?"

      "I was called to my priestly office," he began, in the tone of one who did not expect belief, when Cortéz interrupted him with a sharp contempt: "Then will you say why your chest, and all your garments, were here?"

      There was no answer to that. He said: "I claim benefit of clergy, if I have erred."

      So he could. He could claim the protection of the church against the secular law. Father Olmedo must deal with him, giving such penance as severity could devise.

      Cortéz looked at the remaining five. He said: "I will tell you this. I have known all, within an hour of when you thought that you had won Redes to share the treason that you designed. Your caution was two days late. You may confess or deny, but you will lose nothing if you admit your guilt, and there are those among you who may gain, for I am a busy man."

      There was a moment's silence, and then Escudero said boldly: "What have we to deny? It was Cuba's Governor who sent me here, and whose servant I am. It was to him I would have returned with a true tale. We are in your hands, and you may do what you will, but a day of justice may come. He was clement once, but I should say that he will treat you at the last as you treat us now."

      Cortéz looked at him with cold eyes, but his lips smiled. He said: "It is a shrewd threat, but it will not avail. I do not think to come again into Velásquez's hands.

      "You would say you designed no wrong? Would you not have sailed on a stolen ship? Do you forget the oath of fealty that you took to me?

      "You have not only broken that oath, you have persuaded others to the same crime. There can be no mercy for you. Nor for Sancho, who was as active as you. You two must hang on the yard of my own ship."

      He paused to regard the other three, to whose eyes a flicker of hope had come, thinking that their lives might be spared.

      Two were soldiers of fortune, of small account, but the third was an experienced navigator, without whom the ship could not have been sailed.

      Cortéz said: "You are too useful to hang. But it is your head, not your heels, which may be useful to me. Your feet have led you astray. They shall be cut off."

      He disregarded the look of frantic horror which had come to the man's eyes. He spoke to the other two: "You have been misled. You must feel the lash. But after that you will be reinstated to what you were."

      He rose and went with some haste, having many matters upon his mind, for he planned to march on the next day.

      There was general agreement that he had shown a singular moderation toward the criminals, giving the minimum penalties by which his authority could be sustained.

      But, being alone with Marina, he spoke with bitterness of the necessity for the death penalties which he had felt it had been inevitable to pronounce, about which he was so far right that it would have been a cause of astonishment had he failed to do so.

      Indeed, by the laws of that time, civil, naval, or military, the execution of the culprits was a matter of mere routine.

      So it would have been, without question, by Aztec law, which, not having developed the wasteful expedient of prolonged imprisonments, considered essential to Eastern civilisations, regarded the elimination of unsatisfactory members of the community as a hygienic necessity.

      Marina asked: "You do not like to lose men, having few?"

      "I do not like to order a man's death, who is less than foe."

      "Yet you would cut off his feet?"

      That was the horror to her.

      Cortéz looked at her with the smiling eyes which so often concealed subtleties of far-reaching design. "They are not off yet."

      Marina said: "So?" Understanding, without further words, that they were to remain at the ends of their own legs.

      At a later hour, the man stood before Cortéz, who was alone, except for Alvarado, who was in his confidence in a matter on which their thoughts went by the same road.

      Cortéz asked: "You can tell whether a ship be fit for a long voyage? If it be likely to spring a leak when the winds are high? If it be rotten of cordage, or mast, or spar? These are no more than it is your business to know."

      The man was silent. He was trembling between hope and fear of what this examination might mean for him, and he could not to see what the question would lead. He suspected a trap.

      Cortéz said sharply: "Speak, man! Unless you would have your tongue follow your feet."

      "Yes. I know that."

      "Some of our ships are old. If we should load them with men for a long voyage, might we not be sending them to death in the first gale?"

      "You would have them overhauled and repaired? It could be done."

      "It would require that many men should be left behind?"

      "It would need some."

      "I have none to spare. Might it not be found that there are some ships that are past repair?"

      "So it might be."

      "So I think it would. If you should go over the ships with care, could you make report in three days from now?"

      "Yes. I could do that."

      "And it will be fixed in your mind that I would not risk the lives of men in a rough sea?"

      "Yes."

      "You will need your feet for this work? Then they shall stay where they are for the next week. I will think again when I have read your report."

      Alvarado laughed when the man was gone. "Will he leave them a sound spar, or any cordage which will not snap?"

      "He will be shrewder, if he do less than that."

      Next day, the bulk of the army, with Pedro de Alvarado in command, moved forward to Cempoalla, Cortéz remaining behind to make final dispositions regarding 'city' and fleet.

      The despatch to Spain of the two to whom Cortéz had given the highest offices had cleared the way for the advancement of Alvarado, a man without the diplomatic abilities or social standing of those who had gone, but with some superior qualities for the arduous hazards of war.

      He was handsome, strong, agile, highly reputed for skill both with lance and sword, recklessly courageous at any critical need, bold in decision and swift in tactical action, though incapable of the far-reaching strategic conceptions or the patient subtleties of his chief. He would have been temperamentally incapable of conducting to a successful issue the enterprise which was now beginning; but as its lieutenant he was of a value which it would have been difficult to exceed.

      Had their positions been reversed, it is unlikely that either would have made the name which in fact he did.

      Three days after Alvarado entered Cempoalla, Cortéz arrived, and took over control. He immediately called a council of his principal officers, as it was his habit to do when, by an attitude of deference to the opinions of others, he would endeavour to sway them to approval of a course on which he had already resolved.

      He said that while he had remained behind he had had an inspection made of the fleet, with disconcerting results. He laid before them the report which had been made. He said it would be a poor end, if, when the time should come when they would seek to return in triumph to Spain, with their gathered treasure aboard, they should founder in the first storm.

      They agreed on that. They were not seamen. They all inwardly dreaded the perils of wind and wave, which, in those days of small sailing vessels, were not light at the best.

      The enquiry seemed to some of them a fresh evidence of the vigilance with which their commander regarded the welfare of those he led.

      The report was discussed in detail, and it was agreed that at least five of the ships were in such condition that they were unfit for sea, and beyond their resources to repair. It would be prudent economy to strip them thoroughly of everything which could be useful ashore, and then burn the worm-eaten hulks.

      It would give useful occupation to those who must be left behind, and, when it had been done, it would release some of them to augment the strength of the little army, that must contend with unnumbered foes.

      "It was more lightly agreed," Alvarado said, when they were alone, "than I had expected to see."

      "So it was," his commander said, "I would have proposed that we burn all, had I thought they would be in so complaisant a mood."

      "They might have taken that in another way."

      "So they would. Yet we might have prevailed. ... Pedro, it can be done."

      "There are some who would be most hard to convince."

      "Then they must be taught. I will have no more plots to take news to Velásquez's ears. It might ruin all. Nor will I have men looking back to a safety that lies in flight. ... You shall talk to those you can trust, but yet not as coming from me. Suggest that they should urge me to fire the fleet."

      "Would Escalante do that?"

      "He will do that, and more, if he have orders from me."

      Escalante was the officer whom Cortéz had left in full authority over fort and fleet. He was of a loyal mind, and with that quality of courage which gives hazard a friendly smile.

      It was only two days later that he received a letter from Cortéz which said: "The remaining ships must be stripped and burnt, they being unfit for sea. You will spare only that in which Sanceda came, for it is not mine. When you have done this, you will send to me forty of the men who will then be released from their present charge, retaining any beyond that number to augment your strength on the land."

      Escalante read this letter with a clear appreciation of what it meant. He knew that the ships were not in so bad a condition as to justify their destruction. Some of them were no worse than the one which had been sent on the long voyage to Madrid - with orders to avoid any intermediate port. He knew that some, at least, of those to whom the orders of destruction must be given would know this as well as he. He observed, incidentally, that if, while the army were far away, he should be heavily attacked in his fort or 'city' of Vera Cruz, he would not have the safe refuge of the ships to which to retire.

      He considered the reaction which might be expected from his men - especially of those seamen who had been left on board - at the giving of such an order. Protests were certain; insubordination was probable. He decided to commence the work without explanation, and in a casual manner. He gave orders for various details of dismantling, and for stores to be brought ashore. They were not orders that could be questioned. The work was well advanced before its significance had become plain; and meanwhile he had talked to those on whose spirit and loyalty he could rely.

      Three days later the condemned hulks were fired during the night, the one small ship that was to remain being anchored safely to windward.

      A red pillar of crackling fire rose into a sky that was brilliant with tropic stars, and thick smoke drifted toward the land. Startled men ran out from Vera Cruz, to what appeared catastrophe of an inexplicable kind, and heard with astonished ears that the general's orders had been obeyed.

      The next day the forty recruits joined the army at Cempoalla. Some of them came in a mood of bitter wrath for the destruction of ships which had been homes to them, and because they, who were bred to the sea, had now been isolated without retreat in a hostile land; others were resentful of the destruction of their only visible means of ever returning to Spanish lands; and these feelings were the stronger because the men concerned were not the most resolute of seamen or troops, for Cortéz had used discrimination in leaving such men, rather than those of a better sort.

      They talked to those they met, some of whom were of the same mind. Murmurs grew. Fellow-adventurers felt, with reason, that Cortéz had gone beyond the bounds of the wide authority which, as Governor, they had conferred upon him. Open mutiny was only delayed by the fact that those who would most naturally have led it had been won over beforehand in private talks.

      Cortéz stood amidst a group of loyal officers at the raised portico of his house. He looked on street and marketplace crowded with angry, gesticulating, shouting, arguing men.

      Olid said: "In half an hour, if we let them gather thus, they will be a howling mob around us on every side. Shall we break them up?"

      Few men in the world's history can have been more adroit to avert a crisis than Hernándo Cortéz; few to meet it with readier coolness when (probably by his own planning) it was to be squarely faced.

      "On the contrary," he said, "there should be more here. Tell them that I will speak to them in ten minutes from now, and that it is my order that all be in the marketplace at that time." Having said this, he went back into the house.

      Ten minutes later, he came out, and walked indifferently through a crowd which had become comparatively silent in expectation of what they would hear, and careless of the fact that his best officers were an anxious retinue at his heels.

      He mounted one of the temple pedestals, and looked down on a sea of faces which showed bold and sullen anger, with an almost entire absence of loyal support. He had had difficulties with these men before, but nothing comparable to this.

      He looked at them with the smiling eyes with which his moments of danger were always met. He spoke quietly, but his voice had a penetrating quality which carried it, without apparent effort, to the limit of the marketplace, which was now filled, beyond the rebellious mob of his own men, with a Totonac crowd, curious of what they saw to be of a turbulent kind, though they had no key to the problem of what was wrong.

      "Comrades," he began, "I have called you together here, because things have happened of which you should all know, together with the good reasons for what I did.

      "I have had the ships burned. Most of them were my own property, and, unless we succeed in what we are about to do, I am no more than a ruined man.

      "Men do not burn that which is theirs without having cause. Had I so willed, could I not have ordered their crews to sail them to Cuba or Hispaniola, and sold them there at a great price?

      "But when ships are eaten by worms, and their seams gape, when they have sails that the winds will slit, and masts and cordage that will snap at the hour of need, would you have me gamble thus with the lives of men? There were ships among them that wallowed here with their holds awash, through the storm you will not forget.

      "Now, when you think, you will see what I have done has brought us forty men to augment our strength, besides adding as many to that with which Vera Cruz is held. That may be less than the differences that will turn the scale of the worst hazard before us now.

      "But I will have none with me who would prefer the safety of Spanish land. There is one ship that remains. Will those who would return raise an arm now, and they shall sail the first hour they will?"

      He paused to look down on a crowd from which no arm rose. These were men who looked at their neighbours, as those in hope that they would be first to give the signal of flight, but it went no further than that; and now Cortéz spoke in a higher tone: "Do you fear even to raise an arm? I tell you to speak now, for we would have none with us who is of a doubtful mind. We go forward to win this country for God and Spain, and if we fail we shall surely die, and if we succeed we shall have no use for vessels in which to flee.

      "Let those speak now who would fly, and watch for our return with the golden treasure that we shall bear.

      "Is there none? I will give you a further chance, for I would weed out those of a cowardly sort, who will have no comfort the way we go."

      He paused, and looked down on a silent crowd.

      "Then," he said, "will those speak who are constant to come with me."

      He was answered by a shout of assent that rose again and again in added volume, with the rising temper that sways a crowd. The watching Totonacs could not understand what was said, but they knew that they looked up to one who was a leader of men.

Chapter 28

Diversion Upon The Rear

      Having so literally burnt his boats, in a manner to which there may be no comparable event in the whole history of civilisation, and having sent his mission to Spain, Cortéz could now address himself, with no backward glance, to the wild adventure on which his heart was set, and to which he had been able to inspire his followers, whose faith was in himself, rather than in the logic of what they did.

      Or, at least, so he may have thought; but next morning there was an urgent letter from Escalante:

      "Your ships," he wrote, "were scarcely burnt down to the water's edge when there came four others from seaward that hoved alongside, but would not answer my signals, and did not stay.

      "They are now moving, with wind abeam, slowly northward along the coast.

      "They fly the flag of Spain, with one beneath which I do not know."

      He showed it to Alvarado and Sandoval.

      The younger officer laughed. "If it be Cuba's Governor, he will be too late by a day."

      "You counsel that we should march the more quickly for this?"

      "Yes, in the next hour."

      "But I would deal with it in a different way. I will have no hornets buzzing upon my rear."

      He sent for Bernal Diaz, to whom he said: "You will have my horse and yours, and two others, saddled within an hour. We will take two cavaliers and there will be a company who are to follow on foot, and all lightly armed, for it is pace I desire, and there should be no occasion for guard of shield."

      So it was done. The four horsemen arrived at Vera Cruz when the high sun was hot in the August sky, and Escalante told what he knew of the four ships, which was not much.

      He had sent scouts to watch their movements, which as they sailed nearly to the land, it had been easy to do. The last news was that they had anchored, close in shore, about ten miles to the north.

      "Then there are ten more miles," Cortéz said, "that our steeds must take us."

      "You will stay to eat?"

      "Are we babes? We had meat two hours after dawn. We can last at need till the light fails."

      He spurred on.

      They made good speed, for both he and his companions rode without body-armour; but they had not covered more than four miles when they met three men on foot, who had been landed from the ships, and who stood their ground in a peaceful but resolute way.

      Cortéz hailed them in Spanish, and, being answered in the same tongue, he came down from his horse. They met the smiling glance by which he gained more than could have been won by a single sword, though it were the best in the land. He said: "The Spanish tongue has a good sound for those who wander in heathen lands. But will you tell me what you do here?"

      There was one dressed in a lawyer's garb who answered in a very firm though courteous tone: "That should rather be asked of you. I have landed here to survey the land on behalf of Senor de Garey who discovered it during last year; and to take possession of it in the name of the Spanish Crown, in accordance with a warrant which has been granted to him, and I bring two witnesses, before whom you should speak with care."

      Francis de Garey was Governor of Jamaica. There was something here of which Cortéz had not known until now, and that it must be handled with care was a certain thing. But he did not think it to be as menacing as an expedition from Cuba, with authority to supersede him, would have been. He thought he could turn its assault aside; and his thoughts went further than that. With the mental agility which would so often give birth to audacious deeds his mind became active in contrivance of how these men could be won to augment his strength.

      He said: "We must all obey the word of our Lord the King. Will you show me the authority that you have?"

      The lawyer did not object to that. He said: "It is not a document to be carried about by me. But I have an attested copy here, which you will not scorn."

      Cortéz read it, and had no doubt that it was a genuine copy of an authority which he could not resist. But he read it with a lawyer's mind, and he saw that which brought laughter into his eyes.

      He said: "This is a document to which obedience is due. It give De Garey a noble power. But do you know where you are?"

      "We are on the land which he discovered a year ago."

      "But I should say you are not."

      "If you will read with care, you will see that it gives him power not only on that, but adjacent lands."

      "So it does. But should you call it adjacent here? Should you call Italy thus? Should you call Cathay? Do you know the longitude or latitude here? It is you who should look with care."

      The lawyer considered the licence again, and stood in doubt, rubbing his chin. The fact was that De Garey had landed upon the Florida coast, and this second expedition had turned westward too soon, seeking a coast which was not there, and had sailed into the depth of Mexico's bay. The very precision with which De Garey had made his observations, and the care which was taken in Madrid to define these distant authorities, issued to adventurers over whom it had only vague control, had left the position of Cortéz secure.

      Seeing the lawyer's hesitation, he went on to tell of what he had done, and what he now intended to do. At the end, he asked: "Does De Garey make a large boast of the gold which he saw, or he brought away?"

      "So far, there has been no mention of gold."

      "Then you may suppose there is none there. You will plough in a barren land with no payment to come. With me, every man has a written bond, and his share of gold will be weighed in very scrupulous scales."

      The lawyer hesitated. He looked at his companions, and saw them to be of the same mood. They were landsmen, who hated the sea, where they had met storms. He asked: "You have good licence for what you do?"

      "I have that of Cuba's Governor, who has staked much on our success, though much less than I... ... I have sent a great treasure to Spain."

      There was more debate after this, but not much. In the end, Cortéz had gained three recruits, to his partial content. He was as hungry for men as his followers were for gold. He wanted not three but all.

      They went on together till they came to sight of the anchored ships. But he met a caution here which was hard to foil. The commander of the expedition saw the horsemen, by which he was more puzzled than he had been by the burning ships, for he had not heard of horses being taken to these unexplored lands. He saw the three men he had sent ashore consorting with them. Being puzzled, he remained passively watchful, not allowing a boat to put off for the shore.

      Next morning, Cortéz tried stratagem. He disguised three of his men in the clothes of those who had become his. They went down to the shore, making signals that they desired to be fetched aboard, which surely would not be refused.

      Now a boat came to the land, from which men landed to meet those whom they supposed to be friends.

      Finding their error, they would have run back, but they were already being surrounded by those who had been ambushed for their detention.

      Four were seized and persuaded to join their captors as easily as the first three. Indeed, they had little choice, for the boat, at the first sign of trouble, had pulled back to the ships, which were soon raising anchors and spreading sails.

      Having gained seven men by a day's delay, and disposed of what might otherwise have continued an anxious doubt, Cortéz returned to Cempoalla.

      On the 16 th. of August 1519, the assembly bugles blew, and the little army, with a group of steelclad cavaliers at its head, and a long procession of porters and camp-followers in the rear, took the road which wound through the tropical luxuriance of the plain to the heights of the Aztec land.

      After deducting the garrison at Vera Cruz, there remained sixteen horsemen, and four hundred Spaniards on foot. They took seven of the more mobile cannon. They were joined by thirteen hundred armed Totonacs, with some of their principal men. They had the services of over a thousand native porters to bear ammunition and stores, and to drag the guns.

      There had been no sign during the last weeks of hostility from the Aztec Emperor, or that he took any notice of what they did .

Chapter 29

The Long March

      For five days the little army took an uphill road through a prosperous peaceful land. They did harm to none, and no one offered violence to them. The Totonacs were friendly with the people who dwelt on these fertile slopes. They spoke the same language. They could explain that there was no occasion to fight or flee. But though all was peaceful, the army moved in the guise of war, with weapons in ready hands, and scouts far out aflank and ahead.

      Always, the road climbed. They left behind the tropic luxuriance of the plains, and the lower slopes. Not only the wild flora, but the crops were different in the fields which the cactus hedged. The banana was left behind. Maize-crops ripened under the August sun. The nights had become cold, and even in summer daylight some winds were chill. So far, the Spaniards, bred in a temperate climate, did well enough. But to Indians who had never climbed to these heights before, and were lightly clad, the climate threatened to be a worse foe than the hand of man.

      They had passed at times through narrow defiles when they could have been stayed, if not destroyed, by a hostile force, but the scouts had always sent back reports that the way was clear, and the army, with its numerous train, had narrowed its front, and stretched, a two-mile-long ascending serpent, to emerge again to wide prospects, but always taking an upward way, and looking down upon the rich fertility of the coastal plain, now seven thousand feet below.

      It had been of essential assistance to the advance that they had come through a land where food was abundant, and friendly inhabitants had been ready to barter it in large quantities for a handful of fragile beads, or other trinkets of little worth; but the last two days of this toilsome week were through more desolate scenes. They climbed by wild and barren ways, and were additionally vexed by cold gusts of wind, and sharp showers of hail, and drenching rain.

      From these discomforts, they emerged to a wide prospect of level land. They had ascended to the great central Mexican tableland. The sun shone again. The air was mild. Maize-fields were ripening round them.

      Before them were the suburbs of a town of twenty-thousand inhabitants, stronger and better built than Cempoalla.

      Cortéz halted, and made camp with all the precautions of military science, but he met with no hostile reception. In fact, he met with no reception at all. The country was receiving him with a vast indifference. His little army was like a tiny ant that crawls on a sleeping man.

      Faced by this aspect of unconcern, he decided to ride into the town. With half his little force of cavalry, his interpreters, and an escort of fifty footmen, he marched through the narrow streets, and called on the cacique.

      He was received with a cold politeness, of which, in this land of measured speech, he had learnt to beware.

      The cacique spoke the Aztec tongue, and Marina could translate quickly, with only occasional resort to Jeronimo for a Spanish phrase. The conversation went thus.

      "Do you obey Montezuma here?"

      "All men do."

      "That is not so. I come from an Emperor who is far greater than he."

      "There is none such in the world. You will know this when you see the city in which he dwells, if he should allow you to go so far."

      "In my land, there are a score of cities to match with his."

      "How can you say that of one which you have not seen? It is in the centre of a great lake: an island of temples, and palaces, and of the houses where princes dwell. Every year he sacrifices twenty thousand victims taken in his victorious wars, which still extend his domains, as they will continue to do till the ends of the earth are reached.

      "The causeways by which the city may be approached over the lake are each several miles in length, and when the bridges are raised he is in unapproachable power.

      "He has thirty lords at his feet, each of whom has an army of a hundred thousand most valiant men."

      There was difficulty about the rendering of these numbers, and as Marina's translation paused for consultation with Jeronimo, Cortéz said: "I had not thought your people to be of so boastful a kind. How much is truth in his tale?"

      "He is not," Marina answered, "of our people, though he can speak Aztec. They are a subject race, and there is (as you may have observed) an Aztec garrison in the town.

      "He speaks in a boastful way, of a place which as I suppose, he has not seen (as I have), but it is largely true. Shall I tell him how much greater you are?"

      "Yes. You may do that."

      She turned to the cacique to say: "I am speaking to you myself, telling what I know, for I am Aztec born, and would save you from peril, if prudent counsel can win regard.

      "The Spaniards are so great, and have the support of such mighty Gods, that they could possess this land without a pause in their own routine.

      "Montezuma knows this, though he may not have been careful to share his knowledge with you.

      "Do you know that he sent two Princes of the Royal Blood, with four others of the highest in all the land, to lay rich gifts at my lord's feet? Will you ask yourself why he should do that, if he thought as you?"

      The cacique, who had been little impressed by her previous boasts, was visibly shaken by this last assertion, for he had heard a rumour of it, which he had refused to believe; and, seeing the effect of what she had said, Marina went on; "And do you know that a great army of all the Tabascan nation attacked my lord, and he slaughtered them, with no loss to himself, till the dead were so many that they must be cast in a common grave?"

      The cacique had heard something of this also, though as it had come through Tabascan mouths, it had been somewhat more favourable to themselves, but their defeat was beyond disguise.

      He said, in a somewhat altered tone: "All these things are for our Lord Montezuma to overrule. What is your lord asking of me?"

      "He would pass on in friendship and peace, having had the refreshment his troops require."

      "How will he pay for that?"

      "He will give things of a more excellent kind. And if you make some presents of gold you will do well, for these Spaniards value it more highly than we. They say they have a disease which it alone is potent to cure."

      Cortéz watched a conversation which he could not understand, but he saw the change in the cacique's manner, and he told himself (which he had not doubted before) that when he met Marina it had been his fortunate day.

      She told him briefly what the conversation had been, and went on to arrange, at his suggestion, that the wearied army should camp for a few days outside the town.

      In the end, the cacique not only supplied the provisions which had become an imperative need, but gave some golden trinkets of small account, and a more valuable present of female slaves, expert in making the maize-bread which must become the Spaniards' staple food, now that they had left behind the lowlands where bananas grew.

      The days of rest would have been less ominous had not Bernal Diaz, a quietly observant man, come upon a storehouse which was stacked with human skulls in a very orderly manner. Writing many years afterwards, he said that there were a hundred thousand of them, which may have exceeded fact; but there were certainly more than could have been obtained from the living population of the little town.

      There was no attempt to conceal the fact that they were the skulls of those whom the priests had slaughtered. To the Indians, it was an obvious thing. What else should they be?

      It roused Cortéz to an anger of indignation which caused him to approach the cacique with a proposal that the people should be converted to Christianity, either by persuasion or force, and when he showed no disposition to entertain this audacious proposal, violence would have followed, with dubious results, had not Father Olmedo showed a sounder judgement than his secular chief. "If we set up the Cross," he said, "against their will, it will be pulled down when we are gone, with degradations which we need not imagine, but can reasonably foresee. Would you expose it to that?"

      His words restrained, though they did not entirely convince, one in whom the missionary spirit might be more dominant than that of the Master he served with sincere if sometime imprudent zeal.

Chapter 30

The More Dangerous Road

      The long march was resumed on a road shadowed by great woods that followed the course of a broad river, which provided, what would become at times, their most critical need on this arid height.

      It was thickly populated by a curious, friendly people, who readily provided their needs, but were otherwise negative in their attitude, cowering under the shadow of Aztec power.

      So the march went on, until it came to the dividing of roads, one of which led to the far-off Aztec city of Cholula, through a province the inhabitants of which were said to be of a peaceful kind, and subject to Aztec rule.

      The other went through the land of the Tlascalans, a people few but fierce, who had maintained a precarious independence by their reputation for an uncalculating courage which did not yield while their lives remained. If a man should crush a hornet in a bare hand, it would be worse for the hornet than for him, but his damage would be no less sure, and one which a sane man would prefer to avoid.

      So the Aztecs had been disposed to look elsewhere for the victims their rites required. Could they overcome the Tlascalans, if they should come against them with all their might? No one could doubt that. Did they? They were often busy in other ways.

      The friendly people through whom Cortéz passed advised him to prefer Cholula. It seemed obvious. There would be no fear of hostile reception there.

      His Totonac allies thought differently. They said that the people of Cholula were mean and treacherous in their ways. Men to avoid. They, at least, had no friendship for them, and desired no intercourse.

      But the Tlascalans were honourable fair-dealing men, and very friendly to them. So they thought and said.

      Cortéz listened, and his mind fastened on what to him was the vital fact. The Tlascalans were not vassals of Mexico. They were actual or potential foes. He would go through their land.

      But he was never rash in procedure, though he was always bold in design. He sent an embassage of Totonac chiefs, asking permission to pass that way, with a present of a kind which would be likely to please, - a crossbow, with a few steel-headed bolts, and instructions for its use.

      After resting for three further days, the army moved forward in a leisurely manner, allowing ample time for the return of envoys who did not come.

      Several days having been spent in this dilatory way, in a pleasant land, Cortéz resolved to go forward, whatever his reception might prove to be.

      Coming to a more barren rockier land, the army approached a gap, about six miles in breadth, between defensible heights, and then paused before such a barrier as has seldom been raised by the hand of man.

      A wall, of large, smooth, unmorticed stone, was nine feet high and twenty feet thick, with a parapeted platform for its defenders to man. It stretched for over six miles, the whole distance from hill to hill.

      There was only one entrance in all its length, and this was a passage, ten yards wide, and curving for forty yards between wall and wall.

      Had it been manned, it must have been difficult, if not impossible, for the little army either to storm or turn, but it lay solitary and silent for all its length.

      The scouts penetrated the curving passage, and reported that the wild country beyond was entirely deserted.

      In the counsel by which the Tlascalan republic was ruled, there was assumption that the strangers would await their envoys' return, and they were now engaged in fierce debate as to how they should be received.

      Meanwhile the invaders had entered a land which consisted of a wide fertile plain surrounded by inaccessible hills, excepting only by the walled approach through which they had come.

      Here, for several centuries, the Tlascalans had maintained themselves in a condition of almost constant warfare with the more numerous peoples outside their pale.

      As the power of the Aztecs had grown, the major menace had come from them. Attempts to penetrate into the republic had met with repeated and disastrous defeat, which had delivered many Aztec warriors to the sacrificial altars of the Tlascalan deity. But the Tlascalans remained in a state of loose but perpetual siege. For many years they had existed without salt, without fish, without the fruits of the lower plains. But they had abundance of such crops as their valley grew. They had timber and stone, and they kept themselves fit by constant athletic exercise for the ever-waiting menace of war.

Chapter 31

Within The Trap

      Xicotencatl was an old man. He had lived more than a hundred years. It was his habit to remain silent in the assembly, listening to the views of others, before, if at all, he would intervene.

      He had a son of his own name, one of youthful energy, who spoke more. He was speaking now.

      He was saying: "How do we know that they are enemies of Montezuma? They have received embassies. They have taken gifts. How do we know they would not be treacherous to us? They throw down the Gods of the land, putting up their own. Is there any friendship in that? Shall we allow them to do it here?

      "They have strange weapons of war. The crossbow they have sent us is a wonderful, deadly thing. But they are few. If we slay them, their weapons will become ours. We could make more of the same kinds, and should conquer the whole land.

      "It is with this thought that I have withdrawn my men from the wall. If they enter, they will be ours.

      "When they are routed, can they escape through one narrow gap Will they get their baggage away?

      "We are not Tabascans, to be put to flight by a four-legged beast, or a long pole.

      "I see no friendship in their coming here, or in what they do."

      The elder was too blinded by age to see his son, but he heard his voice, and nodded approval of what was said by the younger man, who commanded the garrison that defended the gap. He would have spoken assenting words, which would have been decisive, for he was one of the four elders whose voices were final for peace or war; but the discussion was taken up by one of more cautious mood. He said: "We hear the rash counsel of youth, which we should not heed.

      "Is it not foretold that white men will come out of the west, who will themselves be of the blood of the gods? I say, let them pass in peace, and their friendship will be our strength.

      "If they be foes to Montezuma, as is the common report, so are we. Shall we destroy each other, to make Montezuma's mirth?"

      There was a murmur of assent as he ceased, for it was true that there was a legend that white men would come from the west with the blood of Mexico's God in their veins. It was known in Mexico, and had confused counsel there. But it might not be true, or these men might not be they. There was no legend that such men would come bringing violence and death, and overthrowing gods who would be kindred to them.

      As he ceased, the elder Xicotencatl spoke, and the council became silent, feeling that the moment of decision had come.

      "I have heard you all," he said, "and there is none with whom I wholly agree.

      "I do not think that these men can be those who have been foretold; but I am not sure.

      "That Montezuma would make peace with them cannot be known. But we know this: If he meet them in wrath they will quickly die.

      "But if he make concord with them, they will become foes to us, and we have enough without them.

      "It were better than that to destroy them now, which my son must be very sure that he will be able to do, or he would not have let them enter the wall: for, as you know, he is wise in war.

      "My counsel is that he be allowed to attack them, as he wishes to do.

      "If he succeed, their weapons will be ours, and much else that we shall be glad to have.

      "If he fail, we will say that he did it against our will, and we may still make allies of those who will have proved themselves to be of invincible power, and we may even join them in putting the Aztecs down."

      It was a subtle counsel, which might have obvious difficulties of application, but it compromised opposing views, and was almost unanimously approved.

      The young general, having no doubt that the intruders would be destroyed, hurried back to his troops.

Chapter 32

A Desperate Strait

      The little army moved forward for several miles, through a barren deserted land. They had not arrived at the cultivated thickly inhabited plain. But they passed hundreds of barrack huts, where the garrison was normally housed, and there was no man moving among them.

      Cortéz rode ahead, closely on the heels of the probing scouts, questioning what it might mean.

      Alvarado was at his side. He said: "It seems that we have come by a quiet way."

      "It is that I do not like. It is an unnatural thing."

      "Had they meant to receive us in a hostile mood, would they not have guarded the wall? It might have been held, with the armies we know to be theirs, even against our resolved assault, the walls being too thick to breach with the guns we have."

      "But have you thought that it would obstruct a quick retreat? Do they lure us on? You must regard that our envoys have not returned."

      "They may be feasting them too well for them to hasten away."

      "Or they may have been themselves the feast for a guileful foe."

      Alvarado did not dispute that, but it did not disquiet a mood which at times broke into song. He thought the army equal to anything it was likely to meet, and he had been inactive too long for his own peace.

      "If," he said, "they have a force in the field, which is retiring as we advance till we come to its chosen place, it might be gainful to know. Let us ride ahead, at a better pace than the scouts can move, and we may resolve the doubt which I see you have."

      Cortéz agreed to that, though with some doubt in his mind. He said: "Then we will do it in greater force."

      He called up six other cavaliers, making half the horse that he had, and they rode forward briskly, their steeds being fresh, having been only walking before. They rode fully armed, their long lances ready to drop into the rests at any sign of a lurking foe. But how could footmen, lightly armed and lightly clad, be any menace to them?

      He took Marina also, whom he was teaching to ride, in case occasion for speech should come.

      They rode in a single file, on a path that was well-defined, but narrow, as were all the roads in this land. It was open, bushy country, level enough for men who did not deliberately conceal themselves to be seen afar.

      So they observed a little band of Indians while they were some distance away. They were not more than twelve, armed with bucklers and obsidian swords, and otherwise dressed in a uniform way. When they saw the horsemen, they ran.

      Cortéz shouted to them to halt, which they did not heed. Then he used spurs.

      The Indians had friends ahead, with whom they would be safe, or as safe as any, in times of war, can expect to be. With life at stake, as their fears advised, they ran well.

      But they could not run well enough. They were ridden down. Seeing that they could not escape by speed, they turned on their pursuers with naked swords. But they had no common language, and naked swords can be met in only one way. They fought like cornered rats, but would have been quickly slain, if a regiment of their companions had not been seen running forward for their relief.

      Cortéz looked back for support which was not in sight. He said to Marina, who had reined her horse a few paces backward, to watch the bicker: We may be hard pressed. Will you ride back, and hurry the footmen on?"

      Marina turned her horse, and he watched her go with approving eyes. She was a light weight to a charger accustomed to the burden of an armoured man, and was able to make speed at which she had never attempted to ride before. He thought: "They will not be long," and turned to his more immediate concern.

      A few weeks before, a great host of Tabascans had fled incontinently from the lances of sixteen armoured and mounted men. It was true that a smaller number were here; smaller also was the number of the Tlascalan regiment which confronted them, but the great difference was in the spirit that ruled its ranks.

      Actually, the regiment was not comprised of Tlascalans, but of Otombi warriors, the Otombis being a race which had long occupied a part of the height-surrounded plain, and had become politically so closely allied to the Tlascalans as to be practically one nation, but they maintained a separate identity, and a spirit of emulation between regiments raised in the two territories was encouraged by those who ruled. It was the especial honour of the Otombis that they had the duty, under the command of the younger Xicotencatl, of defending the six-mile gap by which invasion of their country could be most easily made.

      Now they came forward too eagerly to allow of a prolonged discharge of arrows, which might have had little effect upon the steelclad cavaliers, but would have fallen more disastrously on horses less fully protected.

      They came on with a rush to their comrades' aid, and the Spaniards spurred to meet them, that they might gain the impetus of a charge. The long lances, aimed always at the face, would not have been met by less resolute men.

      Many died, but their numbers were too great for that to avail, so long as the spirit of conflict lived in those who remained.

      The lances were caught in many hands. Obsidian is not steel, but it is hard enough to cut through a horses' neck. They hacked with their serrated swords, and the horses took many wounds. They swarmed round the cavaliers, striving to drag them, with bare hands, to the ground. The Spaniards' swords were out now, and they were in a close group, with the Otombis swarming upon them from every side.

      The struggle, short or long, must have resulted in the destruction of the cavaliers had not their supporting infantry, roused by Marina's urgent summons, come up at a run.

      Arquebuses sounded, and crossbow bolts fell in the Otombis' ranks. They did not await this major attack, but retired, rather as under orders than in a condition of rout; and Cortéz gave no signal for their pursuit.

      They were soon beyond sight, and the cavaliers could have leisure to lick their wounds.

      They raised a sword-hacked man from the ground, who would soon die.

      They looked on two dead horses - a greater loss, others bled, and would give Bernal Diaz much to do before they would be fit for service again. That most, both of horses and men, were free from mortal wounds was due to the fact that the Indians use of the sword was to hack rather than thrust, owing to their desire to take captives rather than to kill.

      Cortéz bandaged a bleeding wrist which the gauntlet had failed to guard. He looked at Marina, quietly ready to help, and, for a moment, his eyes smiled. He said: "You were quick. You saved all." But she saw his eyes become grim again, his mouth hard.

      Delicately, she rubbed a sandal upon the grass which had trodden blood when she had dismounted beside him. With undisturbed serenity, she answered his mood, rather than his words: "There are many dead."

      So there were. Over thirty dead bodies around them were being stripped of weapons and clothes. The Otombis had retired with sufficient deliberation to bear their wounded away.

      Cortéz replied, with equal truth: "There are more who live."

      For the first time, he saw with clear eyes the wild folly of what he did. If they did not fear the horses - if they did not run from them in panic, as the first who saw them had done - he had lost an advantage on which he largely relied. And two were already dead. Resolutely, he thrust the vision of failure away; but it would be with him in sleepless hours.

      "Sandoval," he said, "You shall ride ahead with two others, whose horses are fresh. Ahead, but not far. And you will fall back at once at the sight of foes."

      The little army dressed its ranks again, and moved on until evening came, through a land which was well cultivated, and with many cottages scattered about, but they saw no men moving.

      They came at dusk to the bank of a stream, where they camped, glad of the water it gave; but the need of food had become acute. There were nearly three thousand including the porters, and some hundreds of additional Indian warriors who had been recruited as they had passed through the friendly lands, who must be fed.

      They plundered deserted cottages on the river bank. They gathered wild figs. For most of them there was no more than a spare meal.

      When they advanced again on the next day, it became difficult to avoid straggling, as the sight of deserted homesteads offered prospects of food. Behind the ordered array, and the ranks of the loaded porters, the camp-followers spread over the land.

      Before noon, they were met by two of their own envoys, with two Tlascalan officials. The latter said that they had come to make apology for the skirmish of the previous day, which had been contrary to the instructions the troops had received. That was why they had been withdrawn as soon as a responsible officer came on the scene. The Spaniards could now be sure of friendly and peaceful passage.

      Cortéz replied with equal courtesy, but with a doubt in his mind. Why, he asked, had not all his envoys returned? They awaited him in the Tlascalan capital. Would he be supplied with much-needed food? It would await him at a place not far ahead, where he could make camp... ...

      So they went, and an hour later the three horsemen who rode ahead met two men who panted and ran.

      They were the two remaining envoys, who said that after their comrades left, they had been handed over to the priests, to be slaughtered in the usual way at an appropriate time; but they had escaped, and, as they ran, seeking covered ways, they had seen a large army moving forward to block the road which the Spaniards would take.

      The meaning of this was unmistakably plain, the fact being that the skirmish of the previous day had confirmed the opinion of the younger Xicotencatl that the Spaniards could be destroyed. The deaths of the two horses had been considered decisive. The embassy had put the previous plan to a different use, its intention now being to lure the Spaniards on in a careless mood.

      But, being warned, they advanced with caution, though not enough, for there was a further lesson of their enemies' craft yet to be learned.

      They came to a place where the maize-fields were interrupted by hilly and broken ground, but before this barrier, clear in sight, was a regiment of about a thousand men.

      They held their ground as the Spaniards came on, uttering defiant whistles.

      Their number was not formidable. The Spaniards halted, extending their front, while Cortéz made a final effort for peace. He caused Indian interpreters to shout pacific assurances. He desired only to pass through their country without offence. He ordered his notary to record that this had been done, for his justification in future days.

      The Indian reply was a shower of arrows, and the slinging of stones. Their bows were too weak for the shafts to do much damage at so long a range. They rebounded from steel, or did little more than penetrate the thickness of the quilted coats. But they roused the Spaniards to charge.

      With a volley of bullets and crossbow bolts, far deadlier than they had received, horse and foot, Spaniard, and Totonac, swept forward. Out-weaponed and outnumbered, what could the Tlascalans do but retreat? So they did; but it was only slowly and sullenly, with a fighting front that drew the Spaniards on for a time, and when at last they accepted defeat, and fled at a swift pace, they had lured them into a narrow gorge, where it was no safety to be.

      Cortéz looked up to walls of sheer rock that were near both to right and left; he looked down upon ground that was broken and hard to tread. Horses could move on it at no more than a walking pace, and even then must be guided, and step with care. The guns would need extra men on the ropes, and their progress would yet be slow. He could not see far ahead, for the gorge bent. He could not tell how long it might be, or if it were clear of foes, for its bend was abrupt, and only a short distance ahead. He said: "Forward comrades. Let us hasten to open land."

      He feared that they had been trapped, which was nearly true.

      A struggling, straggling front scrambled onward to take the bend, and, when they did so, they saw the open country before them for which they had wished, but they saw it covered with men. They saw a marshalled army, such as they had not met nor imagined, until that hour. This being how Tlascala arrayed its strength, what was that of the Aztec likely to be? That must be a question for later days - if such they were destined to see.

      Now the narrow vanguard of the Spaniards looked on marshalled regiments which massed beyond its limits of sight. They saw plumaged helmets, and the white uniforms, banded with gold, which were the sign of Titcala's house. They saw many regimental banners, but, over all, that of the heron upon a rock, white on gold, which was the symbol borne by all those whom Xicotencatl led.

      Here were no half-hearted levies, thinking of flight, but an army confident of its numbers, and that the invaders would be their spoil.

      The first appearance of the Spaniards was greeted in what to Mexican ears would have been no more than an expected way. A loud derisive whistle burst from thirty thousand mouths, in one deafening blast of sound, followed by the throbbing of many drums.

      Then the host surged forward to the mouth of the pass, and the Spaniards found themselves engaged on their narrow front before they had space to deploy, or time to array their ranks.

      Cortéz himself, with other steelclad cavaliers, fought hardly with lance and sword against foes whose weapons were not of steel, and whose defensive armour was less than theirs, but they had now no advantage beyond that actual superiority, for superstitious terror was gone.

      There were minutes during which it seemed that the Spaniards would be forced backward and overcome without ever being able to use the advantage their weapons gave. They were saved by the method of warfare that sought to capture, rather than kill, and which regarded it as a point of honour to immediately remove a dead or wounded man. Gradually, the little army forced its way outward in an extending arc until the crossbows could be got to work, and arquebuses discharged their heavy bullets with a noise that was new to Tlascalan ears.

      But, before that, a horse had been brought to ground bleeding from fatal wounds, and its rider, Moran, a cavalier of repute, was seized by eager capturing hands.

      There was a rush for his rescue, which was so far successful that it dragged him out of Tlascalan custody, but he was no more than a dying man, and the horse was lost.

      Many fearless hands, gripping mane and legs, hauled its bleeding bulk out of the Spaniards' reach. And next day it would be hacked to pieces, and the joints sent to every city in the land, in convincing evidence that these quadrupeds were not of a godlike kind.

      Marina, coming to ground that she might give her horse to one who could use it to more avail, found herself at the side of a Totonac cacique, who was glad to speak to one who could understand. He said: "We are no better than dead. It is beyond our power to contend with so great a host."

      "But you will see them fly, as others have done before," she answered confidently.

      "That is vain talk," he replied in a hopeless tone. "All men know that the Tlascalans do not fly from a field of war."

      His glance fell before confident eyes. "They have not," she answered, "met the Christian God until now. They will find He is very great, and St. Jago is little less. You should rather think that, when the fight is done, my lord will ask himself: Were the Totonacs any use to me? And much of evil or good for you may depend upon what his answer will be."

      They looked on that which confirmed her words, for the Christian front pressed forward somewhat and extended to right and left, and the cacique, in better heart for her words, answered: "We have no choice but to do our best for our lives," and turned to direct his men as they pressed forward out of the pass.

      Some ground was being gained, but not much, and it would have been a sanguine hope that the enemy could be overcome, had not the cannon now been hauled to the front. Here was not only more dreadful noise than the other firearms were making, there was a hundred times more dreadful effect.

      The nearness of the Tlascalan ranks, and their close array, made them a mark that required no aim. The cannonballs tore lanes of death, and military etiquette required that each dead or wounded man should be lifted at once, and borne to a safe rear.

      Xicotencatl, looking on with bitter anger, but yet with the cool judgement of a competent general, reluctantly gave an order for his regiments to withdraw, which they did in a sullen, orderly way.

      There was no strength for pursuit. Few were dead, but the wounded were very many. Cortéz, looking ahead, saw a flattened hill which could be made the site of a strong camp. He pushed on to secure this before night should come. They passed through villages which had been abandoned so hastily that they still contained abundance of food. They gained the hill, and camped, licking wounds.

      The soldiers, in spite of many hurts, were in buoyant mood, boasting of the great army they had repulsed. Had they not shown themselves to be of invincible strength?

      The Totonacs also were inclined to exult to the degree of their previous fear. Actually they had fought well.

      So Cortéz said to Marina, who told him her conversation with the cacique. "You did well, you are a regiment to me. But have you thought that if we could win these stubborn foes to be friends to us, we need not fear Montezuma himself?"

      "So you might. But I should say they will not be easy to win."

      He agreed on that. He was of an anxiety which he was reluctant to show. He gave an order that the white men who had been killed should be very secretly buried. They might be few, but his whole force was not large. It must not be thought that they were easy to kill. He went to where Bernal Diaz and his assistants ministered to the horses. They were only thirteen now; and all with wounds to dress, though most of these were not deep.

      Cortéz knew that it was not customary in this land to attack by night. Marina had told him that. But he set his pickets with no less care. He would run no risk of surprise. And he ordered that every man should sleep with his weapon beside his hand, as it was, indeed, their custom to do.

      But the night was quiet, as Marina had told him that it would be.

Chapter 33

Tlascala Rouses Its Strength

      The next day was quiet, and the next night. The idea of making peace, and winning allies, persisted, and, on the second day, Cortéz sent for two Tlascalans who had been captured during the battle, and who had expected nothing better than to be handed over to the Totonacs to afford them nourishment in the usual ceremonial way. He released them, with a message expressing his continued wish for peace, and a friendly passage.

      Having seen them go, he organized a raiding party, which took spoil from the surrounding country, and captured a number of villagers. He took them with no other purpose than to treat them kindly, and let them go. He wished to show at once his clemency and his power.

      It was shrewdly tried, but it did not succeed.

      The two Tlascalans appeared again. They had seen Xicotencatl himself. He was at the head of a great army, not far away. He had told them to return with a message that the Spaniards would be welcome at the Tlascalan capital, where they would provide an exceptionally good feast; or, if they preferred to stay where they were, he would come to fetch them without delay.

      Marina asked them: "Why should he talk so, having been beaten before?... ... You may tell me all, and you have my word that you shall go free."

      "Can you promise that?"

      "So I can, for I know the mind of my lord. Also, he would do much for me, if I should ask."

      "Then you should warn him that a host will come such as will make all resistance vain. It will not be only Otombis and the house of Titcala now. The Eagle regiments are with him: five tens of thousands in all."

      "Do you think so?" She laughed. "The more who come, the more the fame of my lord will be."

      She spoke to Cortéz, who let them go. When they got back, they would talk in the right way.

      "Hernán," she said, when they were gone, "I do not doubt; but you should know that their army will be much more than has yet been seen."

      "Those who plant the Cross have no cause to be frightened of heathen men."

      "So I supposed you would say."

      She answered with her usual serenity, and none would know how far she guessed the doubt that he sought to conceal from all, and which led him to the characteristically bold decision of the next day.

      Then he broke camp, left the high ground, and marched on, seeking his foes. "For I must rely," he thought, "beyond all, on the fear which our successes have spread; and to advance, as holding their strongest force in contempt, will give confidence to my own men, and breed doubts with those who must bar their way."

      So he arrayed his ranks with a front of war, and marched boldly onward, with outrunners on either flank, and a blare of trumpets along the line.

      But he had moved no more than a short way, and the rearguard, delayed by some straggling among the porters, was still not half a mile from the eyrie they had left, when the Tlascalan army appeared - fifty regiments of a thousand each - spread over an open plain that was six miles in breadth, and sufficiently below the Spanish position for them to view it in all its strength.

      As a spectacle, it was superb, and far surpassed that of any European army of the time. But the Spaniards could not be expected to derive much satisfaction from the fact that each army they encountered was more splendid than the last they had put to flight.

      Elaborate feather-work of brilliant colours, and intricate patterns, distinguished its leaders, as did defensive armour of gold and silver, quilted embroidered coats, and gilded helmets designed to represent the heads of ferocious beasts. Above all the innumerable banners of the chieftains rose, and, in the rear, the great eagle-standard of Tlascala, always present, but never captured, in its major battles: wide-winged, a marvel of intricate featherwork, with egg-sized emeralds for its eyes.

      The regiments were uniformed in quilted coats, or even with painted stripes on their bare bodies, coloured according to the arms of their various chieftains.

      The whole scene was one of formidable barbaric splendour, rendered more brilliant and more menacing by the fact that the points of their weapons were of a copper alloy which sparkled redly with the reflected light of the morning sun.

      They were armed with weapons similar to those of European traditions, though with differences, and more primitive in character than were those on which the Spaniards depended to adjust the disadvantage of numbers.

      Their obsidian swords had a very keen edge, but without the endurance of steel. Their novelty was a serrated blade. They were good archers, their bows being curiously adapted to the discharge of two, or even three, arrows at once. They had throwing-spears of various kinds, the deadliest being a short javelin which was attached to the wrist by a leather cord, so that it could be pulled back from a vain throw, to be cast again.

      At the sight of the advancing Spaniards, the wardrums to which they marched were deadened by the screeching whistle that burst from fifty thousand throats, followed by volleys of stones, arrows, and darts, that, as Bernal Diaz would afterwards say, "hid the sun from sight."

      Many of them fell short, and the little army, stubbornly enduring the scourge, lengthened its front, and was soon replying with cannonball and bullet, shaft and bolt, in a louder and far deadlier way.

      The havoc wrought by the cannon in crowded ranks was, indeed, more than the most disciplined troops could be expected to endure, and, had they been resolute to do so, their habit of instantly bearing away both dead and wounded might have employed those who were uninjured until, in course of time, their whole force would have removed itself in that abortive but most orderly way.

      Cortéz, in the front rank, seated on his white charger, that stood immobile amid the uproar, though watching all with alert intelligent eyes, felt assured that they would not stand.

      "They must break," he thought, "and the longer that stubborn courage endure, the greater will be the loss they must count in a cooler hour."

      His greatest fear was of an outflanking movement, against which danger he had so placed some of his guns that they could be swung to bear on such a movement from either side. Behind the Spanish ranks, the porters rested, having piled their loads as a protecting wall. The issue of the strife meant very little to them. They were a caste apart. It was simply a question of whose burdens they would have to bear on the next day.

      But, to the army, their loads were the essentials of safety and life itself. Around them, and the women, the Totonac warriors were a protective girdle.

      Cortéz was right when he thought that the Tlascalans could not long endure the volleys which tore their ranks. They must soon break, he supposed; as they did. But he was wrong when he thought that they would be forced to fly. They came on.

      With their wild whistling warcry, they surged forward, racing over the deadly fire-swept space between, and hurled themselves in overwhelming numbers upon their foes. The next moments were pregnant with the fate of Mexico, and the future dominions of Spain. In the short interval before the impact came, Cortéz had ridden along the short Spanish front, shouting to his trusted lieutenants repetition of instructions already known, and then joining his little squadron of cavalry where it was drawn up somewhat behind, that it might be prepared for a flanking charge.

      The Spanish infantry knew what it had to do, on which its existence must depend. It must maintain an unbroken front, closely and firmly knit. It must not use the sword's edge, but the deadlier point. It must give no ground, lest it be borne back in a movement it could not stay.

      So it had been trained, and so it struggled to do. But the weight of the wave that broke upon it was too heavy to be sustained. It was borne backward. Striving to maintain its array, still facing its foes, with the out-thrusting of many swords, yard by yard the swaying line yielded reluctant ground.

      It was when it seemed that it must break into the confusion which would have brought swift destruction or capture to individual Spaniards, surrounded by thronging foes, that the position was saved by a charge of the cavaliers which Cortéz led. Emerging from the left Spanish flank, and riding forward, they swerved to the right, and rode through the Tlascalan ranks, their long lances, always aimed at the face, doing execution to which there was no sufficient defence or reply.

      The broken ranks closed behind them as they went through, but the pressure upon the footmen had been relieved. They thrust forward with new heart, in a rallied line, and it was now the Tlascalans who gave ground, shunning to meet the thrusts of the steel swords that they could not match, and that their defensive armour was unequal to stay.

      The Tlascalans broke contact at last, retiring somewhat from those who did not pursue. They did not flee. They had carried off their dead to the last man. But their effort had failed.

      Yet they were in no mood to accept defeat. The more distant regiments were moved to the front, and another charge was made against a Spanish line which, if more exhausted, was more confident than before. The attack failed in the same way, and in shorter time.

      But Xicotencatl was resolved on the destruction of the Spaniards, at whatever cost to his own army, and though a third assault was repulsed with an even shorter struggle, Cortéz looked with bitter doubt at the huge host of his foes. If these tactics should be continued, the end could be delayed, but no more than that. Could they throw back forever fresh waves of assault, while their own arms were becoming too weary to slay?

      He looked at the sky, but he had broken camp soon after dawn, and the sun was not yet at its highest point. There was no hope of night.

      Had all in the Tlascalan army been of its leader's temper, there would have been an end of the little Spanish army, and it might have passed from the records and memories of men.

      But Xicotencatl, watching the third charge, and what he thought to be its too easy repulse, was moved to anger against the commanding officer of the regiments concerned, and he was not one to restrain speech when his wrath was stirred.

      "Is all," he asked, "to be done by my own troops? Is all the loss to be theirs?"

      "That I drew them off when I did," the cacique replied, "was according to the sound science of war, which you will not heed. Do you know what our losses have been already?"

      "I know that there are some who yet live who would be no loss at all."

      They were words of angry contempt, which may have been quickly regretted, but were not withdrawn. In all that he said and did, Xicotencatl was guided by a conviction that the Spaniards were a deadly menace to his people and land, which would not be lessened by regarding them as friends, or accepting them as allies.

      Now he faced an angry man who challenged him to immediate duel for the insult he had received.

      "You know," he replied, "that it is a challenge I cannot accept while I am in command here, but were you to repeat -"

      "As to that, I will reduce your difficulty at once, for I am one whom you will no longer command. And I should say that the time is near (if you shall still live) when you will have leisure to spare."

      What he meant by that was partly shown in the next hour, when he not only withdrew his own regiments, but persuaded other commanders to the same course. The astonished Spaniards saw twenty thousand men, most of whom were still in reserve, making an orderly withdrawal. They saw that the Eagle standard had gone, and only those who fought under the sign of the white heron remained, and these, while they held their ground, made no further attack.

      Cortéz was content to do nothing more of a provocative kind. He ordered the guns to remain still, and reflected that St. Jago is a most powerful saint.

      As the sun declined, the Tlascalans withdrew to their own camps, and Cortéz ordered that the army should return to the hill they had left at dawn; and be very vigilant during the night.

      There was debate among the soldiers in the camp next morning as to what Cortéz would do. To advance again, perhaps to meet another army as strong or stronger than the one with which they had had so hard a bout was not a programme to be lightly approved: to stay where they were would be abortive in itself, a confession of weakness to their foes, and a road to almost immediate starvation that no one would wish to take.

      What he did was to send a new embassage to Tlascala, with a renewed assertion that he desired only friendship and peace.

      He chose prisoners for this, as he had done before. To Marina's suggestion that some of his own officers might be of greater avail, as they would answer argument and discuss terms, he replied that they would be useless without her, and she could not be risked among those whom he had come to regard as of a very treacherous kind.

      The envoys reached Tlascala in the afternoon, where the senate was already in session. There was bitter debate which the message they bore did nothing to reduce.

      Those who advocated coming to a friendly understanding with the strangers had now found powerful support from one, Maxixcatzin, who, like the elder Xicotencatl, was a member of the Council of Four, who were the ultimate rulers of the republic.

      "Are we infatuated," he asked, "that we must insist upon incurring loss after loss from those who still seek our friendship, and who treat the prisoners they capture with a clemency which this land has not known in its five centuries of remorseless war?"

      "Are you so infatuated," his opponents replied, "that you cannot see that these men are no more than the first of those who will destroy us utterly, if we allow them the footing they seek to gain? Let them learn that they come here to a certain death."

      The deadlock was resolved by the customary method of asking the advice of the priests, who would not be likely to feel amity towards those who brought alien gods into the land, but still had their reputation for wisdom to sustain.

      Their reply showed the subtlety that bends superstition to politic ends. The strangers, they said, were powerfully protected, but not by the ultimate gods to whom the Tlascalans bowed. They were servants of the Sun, who can protect his own during the day, but is powerless in the dark hours. They must therefore be destroyed by a night attack.

      It was shrewd advice, shrewdly conveyed. A night attack was certainly the most hopeful that remained. It allowed of approach without the destruction that the Spaniards' weapons wrought during the day. But it was utterly contrary to the military habits and traditions of the land, and nothing less than this fantastic reason might have been sufficient for its adoption now.

      What they could not know was that there was no such inhibition of custom among the Spaniards, and that the caution of method with which Cortéz would proceed, even in his wildest audacities, had directed that vigilance should not be relaxed in the dark hours, whatever report might say.

      So it happened that when a large Tlascalan army made cautious approach during the night-hours to the hill on which the Spaniards were camped, they were perceived at a very early stage by an outlying sentry post, which fell back silently, and roused the sleeping host.

      The Indians were not quick to attack. With cautious thoroughness they crawled forward on every side, awaiting the time when they should be near enough for the final rush. But this very caution was fatal to their design. It gave time for Cortéz to silently rouse and array his ranks; and, having done this, he did not wait till the enemy whistles should give signal for attack, but charged out on the crawling foe.

      There was no battle here: the astonished Tlascalans leapt to their feet and fled.

      A full moon gave Spaniards and Totonacs light enough to strike at the backs of a flying foe, whom there was no reluctance to slay.

      For once, the Tlascalans did not remove their dead, nor even bear their wounded away.

      Cortéz followed this new success by a further embassage, offering peace and alliance. It was a reasonable hope that Tlascala would now be glad to make terms to end a conflict for which it was entirely responsible, and which was so inglorious in its results.

      But the envoys did not return.

Chapter 34

Peace

      Cortéz rode into the camp at the head of half a dozen cavaliers, threescore foot soldiers lightly armed for quick marching, and several hundreds of Indian soldiers and porters, who were now burdened with the spoil of a swift and successful raid.

      But he was a sick man, ill with malaria, and tortured by anxieties which he must not show. He grasped the saddle as he came to earth, that men might not see him to be unsteady upon his feet.

      The raid had been successful in its object, but it had not been carried through without difficulty.

      The weather had been bleak: the winds fierce and cold. For some reason half the horses with which he had started out had fallen sick, and it had been necessary to send them back. The cavaliers who remained with him - six of the best companions he had - had begged him to return. He had been obviously too ill to stand, and he swayed in the saddle, though the horses moved at no more than a walking pace, as the presence of the footmen required.

      But he answered only "God is stronger than Nature," and sustained himself by the inexorable purpose he had to save the nation from hell (which he did not doubt that only baptism could do), and to gain a new empire for Spain.

      Now, as he alighted, he was greeted by Sandoval, whom he had good reason to trust.

      Sandoval saw that he was a sick man, and the fact was an added weight to the good sense of what he had been chosen by his comrades to say.

      "In your absence," he said, "there has been much talk in the camp of what it will be prudent to do, which has gathered strength as the envoys do not return, for we have learnt to know the meaning of that. There is a general agreement that to attempt to go deeper into this hostile land would be to throw our lives away, and to lose all that has been already won."

      "Cannot I be away for two days but there must be new mutinies in the ranks?"

      "I would not call it that. All - or almost all - are most loyal to you. But they look at facts. Each time we repulse attack, a larger army confronts our path, and each time we lose those, many or few, whom we have no hope to replace... ... And the Aztecs whom, we are told by all, are the greatest power in this land, we have not encountered at all... ... If we go back now, we bear a great tale. We may say we have done much. We may return with a greater force. If we perish here, none of our own land will even know what our fate has been. It will make abortion of all the valiant actions already done."

      Cortéz looked at him in considering silence. "Et tu, Brute?" he quoted; and then, in a voice that had become stronger, he said: "Summon all men, for there is that here on which all should be agreed."

      He walked on with a firmer step, as though indeed there were some inward force before which the infirmities of the body must be subdued.

      He gave direction that all men of Spanish blood should assemble in the open air before the pavilions which he occupied with his secretaries and other personal confidants, and in which, besides his own possessions, the books of account of the expedition, and such small stock of treasure as had been accumulated since the departure of Montejo and Puerto-Carrero was guarded well.

      And while this was being done, Sandoval explained in very plausible detail, the plans on which the whole camp were agreed, and for which they asked the assent which responsible leadership surely required.

      Of the little army which had marched boldly from Vera Cruz, more than fifty had already died of sickness or wounds, or were so far incapacitated as to be a burden to better men. There was hardly one who could not show the scar of a wound from a hacking sword or of javelin or arrow which their quilted coats had been insufficient to stay. That they would fight through these stubborn Tlascalan hordes, and then defy the mysterious but certainly far greater Aztec power, was not sane to suppose.

      Did not the Aztec Emperor watch them ever, as a cat watches a mouse that ventures too far from its hole?

      To go further was certain, profitless death. But they did not propose to throw away all that had been so hardly won. They did not propose unconditioned flight. They would fall back on Vera Cruz in an orderly way, and fortify themselves there, while the remaining ship should return to Cuba, or Spain, with the great tale of all they had done, and a plea for reinforcements, which would surely not be denied.

      Cortéz faced a crowd of men whom he had come to know well, and he saw many who looked at him in anxious expectation of what he would say, and more who looked on the ground.

      He began weakly, being conscious of bodily pain, but his voice gained strength and confidence as he went on.

      "Comrades," he said, "I hear that you are well agreed as to what we should do, and it only remains for me to assent to the wish of all.

      "You are agreed that we shall go back. Well, so you may. I will blame none. I will not remind you of oaths you have sworn. I will not tell you the difference which lies between honour and shame. But I will tell you this: as for myself, I go on.

      "I would go on though there were fewer of you of the same mind than the horses would bear. I would go on if there were not ten.

      "And I will tell you why. I prefer hazard to certain loss, which you do not see.

      "You have won victories which have brought you a great name. You have a prestige which is more than swords. It is through that name for unfaltering strength that you have lain in peace while I have been away: through it that I have obtained the ample stocks of provisions which the porters are unloading now: through it that the envoys of Tlascala may be here at any moment with words of peace.

      "If you turn back, you will admit a defeat that you have not had. All mens' hands will be lifted against you in the next hour. Some of you may reach Vera Cruz, but I should say not. If you should, it would be through the better heart of those who will go on with me, whose advance may disguise the motive of what you do.

      "Have you thought that you would leave our Totonac friends to the vengeance of most merciless foes? What would it be natural, and even right, for them to do? Would they not seek forgiveness and favour from those who would be their masters in the next week, by betraying you?

      "If you should regain Vera Cruz, and despatch your ship, and they should summon others to do that for which you would have proved too weak - as I do not think you to be - would they make alliances here again? Could they hope to gain one confident friend?

      "And do you think that they who would come would hazard their treasure or blood for you? You would be those who had failed: to be praised, perhaps, with fair words, and be thrown aside, or to fall in at the tail of those who would flaunt in fresher attire.

      "I tell you, you would betray yourselves seeking safety, you would find dishonour and death. You would betray your faith in the God Who has led you here, and Who would have to look for others to work His will.

      "Death may lie ahead, but it will have the consolations of honour and faith: death would lie more surely behind, and shame would be the companion to share your graves."

      He paused here, having spoken as he would seldom do, with the passion that weakness breeds.

      He looked round on ranks of men who had become very still, and his eyes changed to the smiling regard which was usual with him when moments of crisis came.

      "Friends," he said, "I have told you where, as I suppose, the path of greater honour and safety lies. I will say no more, beyond this: I have never told you that which I did not myself believe, nor asked you for toil or hazard I did not share. You will each do as you will, but those who think as I will not fall below the old song that our fathers sang:

      "Better the way of honoured death to go

      Than life and shame as lasting comrades know.

      "Those who are returning to Vera Cruz will now fall out, and make a backward rank; but those who stand their ground will remain with me."

      His eyes were on them now, smiling, challenging, almost mocking, as no man moved. For who would be first in that, with no certainty that he would not also be last?

      His words had been few, and been quickly said. He was never one for long orations, though he might have a lawyers' verbosity with his pen; but he had appealed to every tradition, to which his audience would respond; and though much might have been said (and had been said in the last two days) of a contrary kind, it had actually become doubtful whether they had not gone too far for retreat to be a less desperate hazard than to continue into the unknown. The greatest difference was that the perils of retreat could be approximately assessed, while those which lay ahead were of an unpredictable kind.

      Next morning it seemed that there was added reason for reliance upon Cortéz judgement, for envoys came, as he had foretold they would do.

      They were not those he had sent out, but they gave a plausible reason for that. And the nature of their mission was shown by the white badges they wore. The civilisation of the New World was a separate growth from those of the Old, but it had many natural resemblances, among which was the use of white as an emblem of peace. The nature of their mission was guessed before Marina had interpreted what they said.

      They announced that Tlascala was weary of a war which, from the first, its elder statesmen had not approved. If the Spaniards should be willing for such a peace as would be honourable to all, Xicotencatl himself would visit them to arrange its terms. In evidence of goodwill they brought a retinue of nearly fifty men, loaded with provisions and other gifts.

      Cortéz replied that he would be pleased to end a strife he had never sought. Their general would be welcomed, and terms of peace would be fairly made.

      The envoys left at once, having this message to bear, but the most of their followers remained, consorting with the Totonacs, and the porters of various nationalities, in a friendly way.

      They talked to Marina also, or rather she talked to them, for a doubt came to her mind which she was slow to speak, but quick to probe.

      She watched the Tlascalans who lingered about the camp. She spoke to some of them: she spoke more to Totonacs who had been talking with them.

      When she was alone with Cortéz at the evening meal (for he was too ill at the day's end to have comrades there, as had been his custom), she said: "Hernán, you should beware of those men whom the envoys have left behind."

      "You doubt that they are here in good faith?"

      "I do not doubt; I am sure. They are here to spy."

      "Could we prove that?"

      "If you examine them one by one. It is a method that should not fail."

      So it shall be... ... So you say they are all in this?"

      "It is likely, though less than sure. There are five in charge. You could begin with them."

      "So we will." He ordered that the five should be seized, which was soon done, they being in one tent, and with them a Totonac chief who showed terror when they were disturbed by the Spanish guard.

      They let him go, as one to whom their orders did not apply, but they took notice of who he was.

      The five were brought, one by one, to where Cortéz now sat with four of his officers, and Marina to interpret the inquisition, and a scrivener to take down what was said.

      The first three were stubborn in assertion of honesty and goodwill, though it was clear that one, at least, was a frightened man.

      Before the fourth was brought in, Cortéz asked Marina: "Are you still sure? I would not have them abused without cause."

      "I am more sure than before. They deny all, but they do not speak as men would being falsely charged."

      He saw that all must depend on her, for he relied entirely upon what she reported that she had asked them, and they replied; but her own faith was beyond doubt, and her wits were not lightly foiled. He said: "As you are so assured, we will proceed in another way. You shall talk to the next as though all has been already betrayed, and tell him, if he confess, he shall not die (as he surely should), but we will do no more than slice off his hands, which is much less than a spy's wages should be."

      "I am to say that?" Marina exclaimed, her eyes dark with surprise, - or was it consternation? - or horror? - or simply inability to comprehend? Her glance met that of Cortéz, and they were aware, as they must often, suddenly unforeseeably be, of the gulf that separated the civilisations from which they came.

      And then he thought that he understood. "There can be no treachery in that," he said, "by which innocence could be brought to ground. For if he be conscious of no offence, he will not confess to that which would be against the instructions on which he came, and being constrained to invent."

      "I have had no such thought," she said. "But is it well to threaten that which he will not believe? Or can we think he would prefer to live in so maimed a way?"

      It was a new idea to Cortéz that there could be a doubt about that. The punishment of cutting off hands was common in the Europe from which he came, and was regarded as incomparably milder than that of death. Besides, reason was on its side. If you let a rogue live, must you not mark him in some way which would expose him to honest men?

      On the other hand, the idea that criminals should be fattened and killed for the feast-day board was a horror to him, to a degree that Marina did not find it easy to understand. It was not, of course, a matter for detailed discussion now.

      He answered: "You can assure him that it will be well to believe, for he will find it exactly true; except that he can die, if he prefer that."

      "I do your will," she said, and those who watched heard her talk to the man in a language that meant nothing to them, to which at first she had short replies, but they became longer after a time, and his face became grey with fear. They saw him look at his hands in a shuddering way, but when Marina spoke in the Spanish tongue they found that death was not the easy choice that he made.

      "He asks: Will you be content with one hand, if he tell all? He asks me to say that he has a hand which is soft and plump, and would roast well."

      "Then there is a tale to be told?"

      "There is much, unless I guess wrong."

      "Tell him he need lose neither hand nor foot. If he tell all, he may go free. But if there be anything left unknown, I will lop off both feet and hands, nose and ears, and aught else that good shears may find. He will have no further mercy from me."

      Then there was talk again in the strange tongue, and it could be observed that the man was doing the more now, with a question from Marina at times, to which he would be voluble in reply, with gesticulations of the threatened hands, after which she told what she had learned, with reference to Jeronimo at times, who sat beside for her to consult should her Spanish fail.

      "When our envoys went to Tlascala," she said, "they were well received. The High Council met, and resolved that they had suffered much, in a war they themselves provoked, and which you have always been willing to end. Also, the advice of their gods had failed, proving that your gods are stronger than they. So they decided to send your envoys back with such gifts as can be found in a poor land, and high nobles with them, empowered to make a good peace, and to invite you to visit Tlascala in friendship, and pass onward. This was proposed in good faith, and would have been fairly performed.

      "But they had been told to visit Xicotencatl upon their way, ordering him to cease hostilities, and to send provisions to your camp, which he passionately refused to do."

      "For, with clearer sight than that of his compatriots, he had seen that the invaders introduced an incompatible element which would not blend with their civilisation. It was not a matter of primary importance that they professed enmity or friendship to either Mexico or Tlascala. If either Tlascala or Mexico were to endure, they must be expelled or destroyed.

      He had detained the envoys of Cortéz. He had persuaded the Tlascala nobles to his own policy. He had sent these men as spies to the Spanish camp, with instructions to observe their routines, to ascertain at what point they would be most vulnerable to attack, and, if possible, to persuade the Totonacs, and the miscellaneous army of porters, who increased their strength and supplied their mobility, to desert or betray them.

      Cortéz said: "It is enough. Let him go free. Let the hands of the other nine be cut off, but let them be sent back in one bag, that it will be clear that they will not be eaten by us."

      So it was done, being regarded as a most merciful decision by those who heard, for the whole fifty merited death by the customs of war both of the Old World and the New.

Chapter 35

Alliance

      The fifty spies, including their mutilated leaders, were expelled from the Spanish camp amid the ribald japes and laughter of its European occupants, and the whistles and jeers of the Totonacs, whom it had been their purpose to suborn.

      With their return from this ignominious expulsion, Tlascalan resistance ended. The envoys who had remained with Xicotencatl declined to disregard their orders further at his entreaty and proceeded to the Spanish camp to make peace with Cortéz. Finding them to be inflexible in this resolution, he realised the impracticability of further resistance, and told them that he would follow to make his own surrender.

      The next day the envoys arrived at the Spanish camp with words of peace on their lips, and assurances that the Tlascalan general was about to follow. To the soldiers, it was a climax of triumph, which gave them lordship of the New World: to Cortéz it was no more than a height surmounted which showed the way to more difficult heights ahead; but even he felt some elation when he saw a well-ordered troop approach under Titcala's banner, and showing the uniforms, white and gold, of the chieftain who had been his most formidable and determined foe. None knew better than he how near to the edge of ruin he had been brought in that desperate struggle; and who could be more adroit to gain full value of the position that faced him now?

      Xicotencatl approached the seat where Cortéz awaited him under an awning which gave relief from the heat of September sun, surrounded by his officers in such arrogance of steel and silk as they could still provide. They saw a man more nearly of their own statues than most of the Tlascalans were. Bold-featured, upright in carriage, having an aspect of one who ruled, which did not abate as he looked around, or even when, with the courtesy which the meeting required - by the custom of his own land, and the purpose for which he came - he bent to reach the ground with a hand which then touched his head.

      Cortéz did not rise. He met the bold Tlascalan eyes with a cool, smiling, inscrutable glance. He said to Marina, who sat at his right hand, consort or interpreter as men might think her to be: "Tell him I will hear what he has to say."

      The Tlascalan general spoke at some length. His tone was courteous in a fearless way. It was observed that Marina asked one or two questions, as though she would elucidate what was meant before rendering it in the Spanish tongue - they were brief questions, which had somewhat longer replies.

      Then she said: "He offers more than you have asked, that by such means there may be the real peace and concord on which the future of his country would depend. He is very frank about that.

      "He has no claim to speak for more than himself, the Otombis, and the great house of Titcala. He is no more than the leader of the army which has been defeated by you. Tlascala's envoys are here, and its voice is theirs.

      "But, for himself - and he thinks it a policy which will prevail - he is prepared to accept the overlordship of your distant most-mighty King, if only Tlascala may remain free in its internal affairs, and a bond of friendship be woven thus, which would be sincere on Tlascala's side.

      "He would join you in war against the Aztecs, who have been Tlascala's continual foes, if such be your purpose, which is an enigma that none who watch what you do has been equal to solve; but he would warn you, in all courtesy and respect, that the Aztec armies are very great, their power extending across the world to the further sea. Tlascala has held them back from its mountain walls, but only because it is fortressed thus, and perhaps, because weaker victims have been elsewhere. But had its armies ventured out to the open country beyond, Montezuma would have eaten them at one meal.

      "He says that he does not doubt that your King could make Montezuma bend, if he could send his ultimate power, but, your present force being what it is, he would warn you in friendly words of that which you may not entirely know.

      "He said more as to the Aztec power which I need not repeat, for they were things you have heard already from me."

      Cortéz listened to this with an aspect which did not change, for he would not show his thoughts while he was surrounded by watchful eyes. He said: "Tell him that his words are good, and that the Tlascalans will find our King to be a most gracious lord to those who are loyal in heart to him. But, should they be less than that, they will find him to be a raging and fatal fire.

      "As to the Aztecs, I will deal with them as they deal with me. But I dread them not at all, be they weak or strong, for it will be found that my God is more strong than their armies are.

      "Beyond that, say that we end a war which I did not seek nor begin. We will forget what we cannot change, and look forward to fairer days."

      Xicotencatl listened to this with a face as sphinx-like as that which Cortéz had shown to him. At its conclusion, his expression changed to one of frank acceptance of that which he had himself proposed. He said: "It is well. I have brought presents of little worth from a poor land. They are not much of themselves, but they are given with willing hands."

      Cortéz heard this, and saw the gifts which were now brought forward by waiting slaves. It was true that they were of little worth. But he ignored that. He said: "Be they what they may, they are of great value to me, for I consider only from whom they come."

      A large proportion of the little Spanish army had been marshalled for the reception of the Tlascalan chieftain, and others, to the limits which discipline allowed, had crowded to see their reputed enemy, and witness his submission. It followed that the approaches to the hillside camp were lightly guarded. Even the ceaseless vigilance of the outpost sentinels, which Cortéz had never permitted to be relaxed, either by night or day, had not been fully maintained at this moment of triumph, and there was no alarm raised at the arrival of a very numerous troop until it was close at hand, and then its presence was known by a burst of music, which one of the five Aztec nobles who formed its centre ordered to be played in ceremonial announcement of their approach.

      After short parley with those who had no common language, and neither a firm front of force nor a decisive authority to hold them back, the Aztec deputation moved on toward the centre of the camp, where they were halted by an array of opposing swords while word was taken to Cortéz of whom they were.

      On learning this, he ordered that they should be allowed to advance into his presence, saying to Marina: "Ask the Tlascalans to stand aside, but not to withdraw. Tell them that, as they are now friends, they shall hear all that is said."

      It was adroitly worded, for the situation was not without potential difficulties, hard to assess in advance of knowledge of the errand on which the deputation came, which the Tlascalans must learn even before it could come clear to Cortéz' knowledge, they being familiar with the Aztec language.

      The five nobles approached with courtesy. They spoke flattering words. Beyond that, it was an occasion for further gifts, and for repetition of that which had been said and rejected before.

      Marina translated: "The great Emperor has watched your progress through Tlascala with interest and admiration. He congratulates you on your victories. He would invite you to his capital, but that the populace is so great, and so unruly of character, that he could not guarantee that your safety would be assured. Could he risk that harm should come to his guests, who represent his brother of the Far Land?

      "Rather than that, he sends gifts of such quantity and kind as will be proof of his goodwill and esteem."

      While she spoke, the gifts were brought forward and unloaded from the backs of two hundred slaves. Of their munificence there could be no doubt. They were sufficient in themselves to have enabled Cortéz to return to Madrid with the triumph of a great spoil. There were three thousand ounces of gold. There were hundreds of dresses, both of embroidered cotton, and of the intricately woven feather work which was the finest art of the land.

      Cortéz said, with smiling courtesy in his eyes: "Tell them that I am grateful for gifts beyond my present power to repay, which my sovereign will esteem in the spirit from which they come.

      "But I regret that I cannot return until I have thanked the Emperor himself, for I must do the will of my own King; yet I am grateful for the warning I have received, and have no doubt that my men, while in the great city, will be equal to protect themselves, and all that is mine."

      The envoys received this blandly defiant reply with a consternation they could not wholly conceal, even though they were acutely aware of the watchful unfriendly eyes of the Tlascalan general and his retinue, so few paces away.

      They whispered among themselves.

      Then their spokesman said: "It is not a reply which we can lightly take; for Montezuma has spoken, and this is a land where all men bend to his will.

      "If it be gold that you seek (as it seems that it is), we will promise you that there shall be a yearly gift to your King to a weight at which he will be content, and we ask nothing for this beyond your promise not to advance further into the Mexican land."

      It was an offer of tribute which the Tlascalans heard with incredulous ears, and to which Cortéz was not quick to reply.

      He said to Marina: "It seems that they fear us much."

      She bent puzzled brows. She said: "Montezuma has a name for having an open hand. His wealth is vast, and he is said to love the pleasure of those who give... ... But he will have his will, and having said that you shall not visit Mexico, and wishing for peace - But, even so, they may be offering more than he would approve... ... It is hard to judge."

      Cortéz saw that he had a decision to make which was even more difficult than that which had confronted him a few hours before. He had the opportunity now of returning to Vera Cruz, not as a discredited fugitive, but in triumph and treatied peace; and with promise of an annual tribute of vast amount, to be offered to his sovereign, from a great state, which he had secured by the mere demonstration of a few hundred men, who had fought only with weaker tribes!

      It would be an astonishing, almost incredible, tale.

      But his inflexible purpose held. He had said that he would visit the Aztec capital, and he was resolved that nothing but superior violence should turn him back.

      He noticed also the restless enmity between Aztec and Tlascalan, which was so great that the formality of the occasion could scarcely restrain them to stand quietly a few paces apart. There might be much gain in that.

      He said: "Tell them, with my profound respect to him, that I would gladly do that which their Emperor is liberal to propose, were I not too straightly constrained by obligation to my own monarch... ... Propose that some of them should return to explain to their Emperor that I have no choice but to go on, while the others remain with me till I have his further reply. I will not move in haste, for I would have all arranged in a friendly consenting way."

      So it was agreed, for he had come to a resolution he would not change.

      When a separate opportunity came, he asked Xicotencatl, through Marina, what he thought of the attitude of the Aztec Emperor. He answered: "It was strange to hear. But Montezuma is a most affluent monarch, who ever gives with a generous hand, and you would err greatly if you should doubt that he has a very great power, or that his gentleness will endure toward those who oppose his will."

      Marina agreed to that. She added: "I cannot tell what it may mean . It would seem that he watches ever, and would turn you, if he could, in a peaceful way, or else he will draw you deeper into his own land before he displays his power."

Chapter 36

Tlascala

      The forward road led through the city of Tlascala, at which its lords entreated Cortéz to make such a halt as would enable them to make demonstration of their hospitality and goodwill.

      To this he agreed - it would not have been easy to refuse without giving offence - but he was slow to move, the circumspection which alternated his audacities controlling his mood. He had been three weeks in the hill camp when he marched out with the little group of horsemen in the van, the marshalled ranks of Spanish soldiers around them, the numerous armies of laden porters - increased now by an addition of five hundred which the Tlascalans had provided to deal with the recent gifts of Montezuma, and other spoils which had accumulated during the three weeks' halt - and the now-confident array of his Totonac allies.

      They marched for twenty miles through a populous land, to which they were welcomed with smiles and flowers. It was high, irregular country, with hilly ridges, and stretches of barren rock, but diligently cultivated where ever fertility could be obtained. So they came to sight of Tlascala's walls.

      Being developed by entirely separate civilisations, it was not surprising that Mexican towns differed from those of Europe. The wonder was rather in an astonishing similarity. But it was natural that the attention of the invaders should be drawn to features that differed, rather than those which agreed.

      Tlascala was not only surrounded by a high wall, after the manner of most cities both of European and Asian civilisations. It was internally divided by similar barriers into four quarters, each self-contained, and ruled by one of the four lords of the Great Council, each having his own palace, and separate administration.

      Leaving the main body of the little European army to camp outside, with the native allies and porters, Cortéz entered through the gate which led into the elder Xicotencatl's part of the city. He rode at the head of his principal captains, and a sufficient bodyguard for his own dignity, through cheering, flower-throwing crowds which made progress slow.

      The streets were narrow, as was natural in a land in which there was no vehicular traffic. The houses had flat, terraced roofs. Most of them had neither windows nor doors, but the latticework which broke the wall-spaces admitted light while securing privacy, and no one could enter or leave unheard, owing to the tinkling metal attached to the hanging reeds. There were no shops, retail trade being mainly carried on in an open market, held every fifth day (there were seventy-three weeks in a Mexican year); but more personal needs, which should not wait for a set day, were not neglected. There was convenience of barbers and public baths.

      Slowly, with the help of an efficient police force - better organised than any similar body (if it could be said that there was any similar body) in the Europe of those days - the Spaniards advanced under festoons of sweet-scented flowers, stretched over the narrow streets. They looked up to see flat, terraced roofs crowded with those who cheered and wondered at the sight of the white strangers from an unknown world - strange in themselves, stranger in the terrible outlandish weapons which had enabled them to force irresistible way so far through a hostile land, strangest of all in the dozen of great beasts on which their leaders rode, and which obeyed them in ways which it was mystery and marvel to see. Surely such men must have a most great and terrible God!

      Wary, but well-content, Cortéz heard the wild strains of welcoming music: he looked round on the cheering crowds. He had taken a bold risk, entering thus, leaving the bulk of his forces, his artillery, his stores, his treasure, outside the walls. But when he had decided to take a risk, who could do it with more assurance than he? And he saw that it went well. He thought himself to be on the way to gaining loyal and powerful allies. Divide and rule. It is a maxim that seldom fails. He had not precisely done that. He had found division. But he might prove adroit enough to gain by that which was already there... ... Here was a wide courtyard, and a great house. The police held back the people on either side. He advanced to dismount before a flight of steps down which the elder Xicotencatl came, a girl whose dark hair was wreathed in honeysuckle guiding his steps.

      Garlands of roses were thrown over his neck as he grasped the hand of the aged ruler, whose own was then lifted to pass lightly over the features of one whom his dim eyes could not see sufficiently.

      Marina, alighting at his side, and garlanded with the same profusion of scented flowers, was quick to translate the words of greeting and invitation which introduced them, and a dozen of the principal Spanish officers, to a banquet where none others were present except the younger Xicotencatl, and the girl - his daughter - who was accustomed to guide her grandfather's steps on the few occasions of state for which he would leave the security of the rooms he knew.

      Marina said to Cortéz: "I am to ask your pardon that there will be a woman at the table, which is not the custom, but our host's infirmity of sight requires that his granddaughter should be near at hand, and I am also free to be there, so that you may converse during the meal. For the same convenience I am to ask your pardon that I shall be placed between you and him, so that I may translate that which may not be spoken loudly for all to hear."

      She said this as they washed faces and hands in the silver ewers at the side of the hall, which was the strict etiquette of all meals in these lands, even in humble homes. Teeth also must be cleansed, both before and after, lest the Spaniards be regarded as greater barbarians than was already assumed.

      Marina went on, as they took their seats at a board now piled with turkey and other game, and variety of supporting dishes, bright with cup and platter of silver and gold, and vases of such pottery as few European tables could equal in any land, and decorated with the invariable profusion of scented flowers: "I am to apologise to you for the fact that there is an absence of human meat. It would have been no more than routine courtesy to kill a prisoner of war, or a slave of no better use, on such an occasion, that you might be fed in the best way. But it is known that you do not favour such food, and it was held the higher courtesy to consider your customs before their own."

      "Will you say I am grateful for that?. ... And will you tell me if I do anything unmannerly by the standards which are recognised here?"

      "You will do little wrong if you observe what I do. But if you have any doubt you can ask, for who but ourselves can understand what is said?"

      She turned, as she spoke, to their aged host, who was now requiring her services for a conversation on which the future course of events might largely depend.

      "Will you tell your lord," he said, "that it was I who advised resistance to his invasion of a land to which he had not been invited to come; and, but for that, there would have been general agreement to let him through. That being so, and the one who led the attack being my own son, and we having come to another mind, he will understand that he will have nothing further to fear - I should say to doubt, for I suppose that fear to him is no frequent mood.

      "You may say further that, if he deal with us as a friend should, he will find us to be straight of speech, and of deed alike... ... If I ask him with what purpose he would go on to the Mexican land, and by what route, it is that I may give friendly counsel concerning that which I know well."

      Marina translated this. Cortéz asked: "Is he one to trust?"

      "He has that repute. I should say, yes."

      "Tell him that I go to visit the Aztec Emperor, as my duty to my own sovereign requires. I go in peace, for my part. But I care not, be it peace or war. As to the route I choose, I am not yet settled of mind. I would welcome counsel from him. But I am told that there is a city, Cholula, upon the way, which is a wonder to see."

      "Yes," she smiled. "You had that from me. But he will tell you that it is a great risk, which you need not have, and that it is not on the route at all."

      She turned to the aged ruler again, and there was a long period during which the Spaniards could only watch the animation of a conversation they could not share. They judged by gesture and tone that Marina was receiving a warning message to which she did not assent, with some contrary argument, to which he gave patient reply.

      Then she gave the shortened substance of what had been said in Spanish which she had become fluent to speak.

      "As to what you would do, he says, he has not been asked to advise, and you have so far seemed to be of invincible power. Also, the men of his race regard the Aztecs as mortal foes, and they would aid you against them with willing swords, if such occasion should come. But that is not to say that they would advance their armies far beyond the great mountains which are their girdle of strength. For the Aztecs are too many to be encountered on level land. He would have you warned with a friend's voice of the extent of their power, which is beyond anything you have yet seen.

      "He tells you also that, if you depend upon the presents you have received, as proof of either friendship or fear, you may guess wrong, for the whole land (knowing Montezuma as you would not say that you do) is watching a riddle it cannot read.

      "They know that, from the day you landed, there is nothing that you have done which has not been spied, and carried by swift runners to him, so that he knows all that happens from hour to hour.

      "They know that he does not wish you to approach his city (which has no like in the whole world), and that there is amazement there that you should continue to flout his will. It is the conclusion of most that you will end as sacrifices at the next ritual feast, and, if he means you to come to that end, he may think that you do better to go to him on your own legs than to be carried so great a way.

      "But, however that may be, you will reflect that his armies are very great, and that he has not used them at all. There must be a meaning in that.

      "As to the way you take (should no warning avail), he would have you know that the city of Mexico is to the east, but Cholula twenty miles to the southward of where we are. It is far from the direct way. It is not a warlike city, but one of ancient religions and many arts. Its inhabitants are expert in treasons and cunning wiles. They are foes to us, and will not welcome our friends. They may not be friends to the Aztecs, but they are too shrewd to offend them, having maintained some measure of independence by the wealth and prestige that their city has, and by ever agreeing to that which the Aztecs will. They would welcome you with fair words and massacre you in the night if they thought that Montezuma would give them thanks. If you go that way, you will ask for dangers you need not have.

      "But if you approach the city of Mexico by the straight road, you may be foiled in the end, even without strife, for it is set in the midst of a great lake, and its causeways could be barred, or else cut.

      "Or else, should you be permitted to go in, you might find that you had entered that which you could not leave. It might be no better to you than a baited trap."

      Cortéz listened to these friendly warnings (as he took them to be) with no change in the smiling courtesy of his eyes. They told him little that he had not heard in the privacy of their own tent, and in greater detail, from Marina before.

      But this was not private. It was heard by his officers also, and half his thoughts were given to what its impact on them would be.

      He looked at Alvarado, who, if not the most reliable, was the most adventurous of a most venturesome band. Did he take it with the gay courage which threat of danger was so constant to rouse? But Alvarado was not listening at all.

      His eyes were on the girl who was seated on her grandfather's further side, and it was evident that his attention was fixed on her, and characteristically, oblivious of what others might think or see.

      He saw one whose black hair was piled high on either side of her head, and wreathed in honeysuckle, with a white rose in the depression between. He saw a complexion of golden brown, lighter than that of those who dwelt in the lower lands, her cheeks slightly stained by the cochineal which was the only cosmetic that was used by those of patrician birth in her land. But this was obscured now by a natural colour which had risen as she had become conscious of the bold regard which had challenged her own dark eyes, till they had been hidden by fallen lids.

      Every civilisation has its own modesties (which are but the following of the mode), and those which had surrounded her had been stricter, and yet given more freedoms, than were known at that day in Spain.

      Her childhood, princess though she might be, had been very straightly controlled. Then, as adolescence passed, she had become free to do most things as she would, in the assurance that the conventions which she had been taught would be fully observed. They were things which everyone did, and the penalties for transgression, which it was seldom necessary to invoke, were too severe to be lightly incurred. It was as though there were a large domain with absolute freedom to wander therein, but surrounded by a pale which was death to climb.

      She would marry in due time, with the necessity of her father's assent, which would not be capriciously withheld. Her husband might have other wives (though few did). What could be wrong in that? But the breaking of marriage vows was something so exceptional that it might be said that it did not occur. If it did, its very locality would be cursed of god, and the punishment of the criminals would be of such a kind as would discourage disloyal thoughts from rising in other minds.

      It was an ordeal for her, even with all the prestige of her high rank, and the assurance it gave, to be eating thus amidst a concourse of men. Men of her own race would have recognised that, and been careful not to embarrass her with a direct glance, or a needless word. And this golden-haired, godlike stranger from a land which none had imagined to exist even a year ago. ... She cast down her eyes and hoped that none could perceive the beating of a heart which she could not control.

      Her grandfather's feeble sight made it improbable that he could have seen anything of this, but he was speaking to Marina again, and, when she translated his words, they had a very positive sound.

      "He says that it is misfortunate that you are here without women of your own race and degree, for it is the custom in every land that such alliance as they have now made with you should be secured by the mutual giving of brides.

      "But, even so, they would not fail of their side, and they have maidens enough to content your men of rank, which they will not be backward to do."

      "Thank him for that which is nobly meant, and which you will not say that we decline; but you will remind him that some of them, if not all, may have wives which they have left in their own land."

      He was conscious next moment that this might have been differently said, for did she not know this to be his position? And if it were a bar to them, what was her status with him? But she gave no sign of such thought as she translated what he had said, and then gave him the Tlascalan ruler's reply: "He says it is natural that that should be, but a wife the more should be no burden to them, and should be welcomed by those who are lonely now."

      "You will say that it is an offer we most highly regard, and there may be those who will lightly agree, but they cannot wed except they have Christian wives, and it would be necessary for them to be baptized."

      "He says that there would be no dissent about that. A wife should be of her husband's faith, that they may be together in all that they do. Doubtless, had you had women here, they would have been wedded to their own nobles with a like transit of faith... ... I know what you would answer to that, but it should be left unsaid."

      Even Cortéz, zealot for his faith though he was, could see the wisdom of that advice.

Chapter 37

Pause

      The Spaniards stayed for three autumn weeks, enjoying Tlascalan hospitality, and making closer a friendship which survived more than one difference which might have led to an opposite end.

      They were feasted in the other quarters of the city, by their various lords.

      They were offered wives with more of formality than there had been in the first suggestion, and five Spanish officers married Tlascalan girls of good families, who were baptised, and took Christian names.

      Among these was the granddaughter of Xicotencatl, whom, to her equal satisfaction, Alvarado acquired, as he would most things on which his eyes fell, and his heart was set. Knowing no word of each other's language, of such alien civilisations as may never have come together in the world's history before, there is no evidence that these marriages did not succeed, and that of Dona Louise (her new baptismal name) was of a happiness none could doubt.

      Meanwhile, the main part of the little army, with its porters and camp followers, remained outside the city, so severely restrained, by Cortéz orders, from consorting with the townspeople as to rouse the resentful protests not only of his own officers, but of the Tlascalan rulers, whom he placated with assurances that it was the military custom of Spain, which was a diplomatic rather than a truthful reply.

      It would not have been in accordance with his character to let the weeks pass without an attempt to force redemption upon his allies, but here he found argument in vain, and urgent persuasion badly received, and it may have been only the wisdom of Father Olmedo which averted disaster.

      He urged restraint upon one who was not easy to rule, even on a matter of faith, and when it was the voice of the Church that spoke.

      "Father," he protested, "how can we expect the blessing of God upon what we do, if we are faint of heart to bring the people to him, whether by violent or peaceful ways?"

      "You will not call me," the priest replied, "lacking in zeal for the conversion of heathen men. But will you give thought to this - that, if you provoke these people to anger now it may mean disaster such as will end the hope that you might lead them to the feet of Christ on a later day? Or have you thought that, if you constrain them to yield with resentful hearts, you will pass on, and they will return to their own gods the next week?"

      "Father, had they a less loathsome faith! Who could endure the foul images of their blood-smeared gods? Are we to take men whose bellies are heavy with human flesh as our companions in this crusade for the glory of God and Spain?"

      "Son," Father Olmedo replied patiently, "have I asked you to make them companions in what you do? But I tell you that you have a people to deal with here with whom violence will not avail. We must persuade and teach, or else fail, with the wreckage of all you dream. If you snap at the shadow, do I need to say you will drop the bone?"

      He turned to Marina, who had been listening with silent gravity to this debate, to ask: "Cannot you persuade him that I am right, knowing these people's ways better than we?"

      Marina said: "They are not my people. They have ruder ways. But I would talk to Dona Louise of this. Her grandfather listens to her, and she will aid us the most she may. Father, would you join me in this?"

      Father Olmedo had already learned much of the tongues of the New World, on which the success of his teaching must depend, but he knew that he could not talk or understand as Marina would, nor would his influence with Louise be of the same kind.

      Louise had given herself to her new lord and her new faith with the fervour of a great passion, and the docility which was natural to the women of her race, and any influence, across the difficult bridge of language, that Alvarado might have with her would be on the right side. He wore his religion as easily as an old cloak, and had nothing of his commander's proselytizing zeal.

      A quick friendship had developed between the two girls, who had been mutually helpful. Marina told Louise much of the ways of the white men, which it was useful to her to know. Louise had provided gay clothes which Marina had been eager to have. Cortéz did not know enough of the fashions of the land to judge whether she dressed as his consort should; and the hundreds of costly garments that the munificence of Montezuma had sent would have been more useful if they had not all been for masculine wear. Feather work and embroidery, however richly wrought, could not be easily altered to the purpose that she required.

      Louise was willing to help, but not sanguine of much result. She took them to her grandfather, and Father Olmedo listened to much conversation which he only partially understood.

      The aged Xicotencatl was courteous but definite in rejection of any proposal that there should be a national acceptance of the Christian God. "Why," he asked Marina, "should we do that?"

      "It is the better faith, which I can say, as few could, having known both."

      "It may be better for them. To each nation its own gods, who will be of the pattern which it requires... ... Will you tell me how you come to be wedded to your lord, being plainly of Aztec blood, and from a country where he has not been?"

      "You ask that which I must not say."

      Xicotencatl turned his dim eyes searching upon her at this reply, but made no protest at its refusal of information of so apparently innocent a kind. He said: "We will go far to render our Spanish brothers content, but this is beyond reason to ask."

      Father Olmedo said: "It is what I expected to hear; but, perhaps, if we ask less, we may get more."

      So it proved to be. When they left, they had the promise that (subject to confirmation by the Council) the Spanish priests should be free both to practise and teach the faith. They were to have permission to erect a Cross in one of the public squares, where they could celebrate Mass in the sight of all men who should be drawn by devotion or curiosity.

      Beyond this, as a gesture of courtesy to their guests, the Tlascalans would release the captives who had been intended for current slaughter. It is improbable that these could have been numerous, and certain that the practice of ritual cannibalism was resumed after the Spaniards left, but the concessions were substantial, and exhibited a spirit of tolerance far beyond anything which would have been shown either by the ecclesiastical or civil authorities of Seville or Madrid.

      Meanwhile a further embassy to Cortéz arrived from the Mexican Emperor. Protected by the immunity which their mission gave, they entered the capital city of the hated Tlascalans, and, having secured a private audience, they informed him that their monarch had now decided, in recognition of their earnest prayers, to receive them as they desired. He sent gifts with the same princely generosity as before. He warned against making alliance with the savage Tlascalans, which would be too base a connection for those whom he would call his friends. He recommended that they should travel by way of Cholula, where he assured them that they would be well received.

      Promising little, except that he would do that which he had previously resolved, Cortéz answered them with friendly assurances and protestations of high regard for Montezuma, and appreciation of the invitation he had now received. He said that the warning they had given him regarding the Tlascalans would be remembered, and pondered well.

      But he was in no doubt either of Tlascalan good faith, or of the advantage that the alliance would be. What he pondered most, in a dubious mind, was Montezuma's intention toward himself, and how he might be able to break through any snare into which he might be cunningly led.

      He had further light on the confused politics of the land to which he had come when another Aztec deputation appeared, with implications for which the facts which Marina had already told him had not wholly prepared his mind.

      He knew that Montezuma claimed supremacy over a neighbouring kingdom of Tezcuco, which had been ruled by Nezahualpilli, probably the greatest and wisest monarch that the land had known, who had died three or four years earlier. The right to the Tezcuco throne had then been contested by two brothers of whom one, Cacama, had had Montezuma's support, through which he had obtained the city and fertile province of Tezcuco itself, while his brother, Ixtlilxochitl, had been allotted an outlying province, mountainous and sterile, with which he was ill content. He did not know whether there were now a spirit of concord or animosity between the two.

      But the deputation left him in no doubt about that. It brought a blunt request that Cortéz would join Ixtlilxochitl to assist him to seize a throne which was rightly his. He might ask much for that, and the terms would not be considered too high.

      To this astonishing offer, Cortéz gave an encouraging though indecisive reply. He had come to a land where all things were strange and new. He desired friendship with all. But he would give much to see justice done. He must hear more of Ixtlilxochitl's claim at another time.

      There was one fact that emerged clearly from this - it must be the prevailing belief throughout Tezcuco that he was of a very formidable power.

      Marina confirmed this inference. Ixtlilxochitl had no force to contend with the armies that Montezuma controlled. His closest friends would be unlikely to support him in so wild and hopeless a claim. He must regard the Spaniards as having an almost invincible power.

      This deputation went, and another came. They were men from Cholula now. They said that they had come to invite the Spaniards to visit their city on the way to Mexico. They could be sure of good hospitality, and to visit the ancient city of Many Faiths would be a contrast to what they must have endured in this barbarous land.

      Cortéz looked at them with more doubt than he had felt before. They were mean men, meanly clad . He said they should have an answer on the next day. Meanwhile he arranged for them to have lodging among his own officers, for when they looked at Tlascalans they shook with fear.

      He said to Marina, when they had withdrawn: "I was told that Cholula is a rich city, of wealth and temples and ancient arts, but they are beggarly men."

      She answered: "So they are. I do not understand it at all."

      Louise came at a later hour. She said: "My grandfather and father have been talking to others who are friendly to you, and I come from them with cautioning words.

      "They say that the deputation from Cholula is an insult in itself. The men they have sent are the very scum of the town.

      "Besides that, there is certain report that an Aztec army has moved to the southward of the city (where it would not be seen by you till after you had entered its walls), and they regard it as certain that some treachery is resolved. Why else should you be urged to go to a place which is not on your direct way?. ... If you would take counsel from them, you would remain here, where you are secure."

      Cortéz said: "I must go on. But I am not deaf to a friend's voice."

      He sent for the deputation. He told them: "You will go back with this word: If I visit Cholula I must know that it is at the wish of those who are in control, and not only those who may sweep its streets."

      The men cringed, and went. Being alone, Marina asked: "What shall you do now?" They had come to a level at which he confided in her, as in no other, woman or man, and would heed her advice at times. But he was now in a very confident mood. He said: "If I go that way, it will be with the caution that warning breeds."

      Two days later another deputation arrived. There could be no question now of the status of those who came. They were men of rank by their known names, their manner, and their attire.

      They had an excuse for the meanness of the first embassy, which might have been true. They had feared to come themselves, knowing how they were hated by the Tlascalans. It had seemed prudent to send men who would not have been missed, even had they gone to the cooking-pots of the priests.

      Cortéz accepted this. He said to Marina, in the tone of one who is polite to inferior men: "Tell them that I have decided that I will visit Cholula on a near day."

Chapter 38

Cholula

      "I hear from Father Olmedo," Cortéz said, "that you do not wish the circumstances under which you left your home, or even where it may be, to be widely told. Is there a good reason for that?"

      "So I think there is. But you must consider that I must guess more than I know.

      "I went to rest at night in my own room, in a great house that was mine, in a peaceful land, and I waked on the next day (unless it were later than that) in a litter that traversed a mountain road, in the hands of those who had bound me both foot and hand. I must have been drugged, and sold or given to those who had bargained to bear me far. I ask myself who would have done that? And there is only one reply.

      "My stepfather would not. He was a man without guile. My half-brother was a young child, with whom I had bonds of love. My mother ruled all, and if she did not hate me (which I would not say) she hated the law by which all was mine, and my half-brother could inherit nothing unless I died.

      "Now he will have all, if she can make me dead by the law, which she must contrive, though I know not how.

      "But you must see that, if I should return, and my guess be true, it might be hard to conceal so much that my mother would not die by the law, as most would call a just doom. But can you think that I wish that?

      "She has brought me to no ill, but the joy of love. And my brother is welcome to that which was mine by law, but could have been his by my will.

      "I will stir nothing of my own choice."

      "Should not those be dealt with by law who had kidnapped you in so foul a way?"

      Marina lifted astonished brows. "But they were merchants! You could do nothing to them."

      Explanations followed. The merchants were a caste apart, overreaching the frontiers of many lands. They had their own customs, their own laws. They were not specifically above the laws of the lands about which they moved. Rather they stood aside, and even the Aztecs would think more than once before challenging their untested power.

      Without vehicles, without beasts of burden, the long lines of laden pedestrians toiled in single file, perhaps a thousand strong, up the mountain paths, an occasional litter being the most conspicuous feature of the slow-moving file. They bore no arms. They had no military support. But they had little reason for fear.

      Once, in past years, such a caravan had been scattered, slaughtered, plundered, in a southern land; but the vengeance which had fallen upon the robbers was still a tale of terror to all who heard.

      No one knew what their wealth might be, or entirely how their influence worked; but their power to stop all trade with a city or race which incurred their wrath was alone sufficient to give them a menacing power.

      Apart from them there were no financial interests in the whole subcontinent to challenge those of the civil power. There were no industrial magnates, for there were no organised industries. Featherwork, jewellery, pottery, weapons and tools - they were all made by skilled hand-labour behind the reed-curtains of private rooms.

      Whatever trick Marina's mother might have used, whatever bargain with the merchants she might have made, the Aztec law would not be invoked against them, but only against herself. And no one who knew their ways would doubt that the merchants, with an exact honour, had fulfilled whatever bargain they might have made.

      The explanation of this curious international power of the merchants' guild led to further understanding of the status of the city to which they were preparing to go.

      So far as the merchants had any known central organisation it was seated there. Cholula was not the largest city in the land, but it was probably wealthier even than Mexico itself, and it certainly produced merchandise of unrivalled value. Its bulk might not be greatest, but its artistic quality was incomparably highest. Almost every one of its twenty thousand houses contained craftsmen whose work was in demand as far as civilisation extended to north or south.

      The men of Cholula were not warriors, and its wealth must have been tempting to poorer neighbours, but, though internally independent, it was loosely under the domination of the Aztecs, whose policies it would always support. And its pre-eminence in trade, with the support of the merchants' guild, was not its sole, nor even its major, claim to the immunity which it enjoyed. It was the centre of religious worship throughout the known civilised world.

      It was a very ancient city. It had been ancient - of unknown antiquity - when, centuries before, the Aztecs had come out of the North, and founded the lake-surrounded city, which, from ocean to ocean, had become the centre of secular power.

      All the religions of the land had a temple here.

      It contained the greatest wonder of human building known to the Western World - a flattened pyramid the base of which covered a hundred and forty-four acres, and of which the top platform was crowned with a splendid temple draining pilgrims to view it from many lands. For it was a wonder that all men must wish to see.

      It also had been built by a past civilisation, in the dim days before the Aztecs entered the land. It proclaimed the worship of Zuetzalcoatl, who, in remote time, had been a God Incarnate, clothed in human form. For twenty years he had dwelt there, teaching man the good conduct of life, and, that, if they must sacrifice to the Unseen, their offerings should be fruit and flowers. But his worship was debased now, his teaching largely contemned. His altars, like those of his Aztec rivals, were foul with the blood of men.

      It may have been Marina's explanation of Cholula's wonders, and its curious eminence and immunity, which had finally caused Cortéz to resolve that he would not pass it unseen, for the benefit of a shorter road. The thought of seeing it brought some pleasurable excitement to her own mind. And its qualities did not appear to be of an aggressive sort.

      Even the information they had from the Tlascalans at the last moment, that spies reported recent activity in strengthening the gates of the city, and repairing neglected walls, did not change his mind, but when, having found his resolution fixed, the Tlascalans offered that their army should go with him until he had passed through the ancient city, he compromised to the extent that he agreed that they should strengthen his ranks with a force of six thousand men.

      "To take more," he said to Leon, who had argued consistently for the direct route, "would be to suggest hostile intent. It would be excuse - it might be the actual occasion - of attack upon ourselves which we need not have."

      So, as October waned, he marched out of Tlascala while the rising sun was still low, and moved slowly on the mountain roads, the little band of horsemen leading a mile-long snake of artillery, and marshalled warriors, and baggage porters, and the miscellaneous camp followers that joined such movements, as jackals follow the lion that rises to seek a prey.

      While the sun was still high, they left the Tlascalan hills. They looked down on a great plain, itself six thousand feet above the ocean they had left two months before, and yet surrounded by distant mountains on every side, of such height as made little of that commencing eminence, and towered through tropic sunlight to cold heights of unchanging snow.

      Ahead, they saw the walled girth of the ancient city, its huge central pyramid crowned with a gleaming temple, and surrounded by an incredible number - said to be four hundred - of temple towers.

      Between was a level fertile plain, thickly wooded in places, irrigated by canals, intensively cultivated, and showing fields of ripening maize, of aloes, pepper and other crops, indicating a prosperous and peaceful land.

      They marched on till the sun was low, and they were near to Cholula's walls, and then halted in a woodland space, where a small natural river supplied their most urgent need, Cortéz recognising that his force was too numerous to attempt to enter the city abruptly at such an hour.

      Soon there came an official deputation. They welcomed the Spaniards, but protested against the presence of their Tlascalan allies. Those who might be friends to Cortéz were foes to them. To allow such numbers to enter the city would be to invite riots, which they would not be responsible to restrain.

      The difficulty was overcome by a compromise. Cortéz was to enter the city next morning with his Spanish soldiers and a few camp-followers only, while the Tlascalans, with the bulk of the porters, were to remain camped outside, and to rejoin him when he should go on to the Aztec capital.

      Next morning he rode through the city gates, amid welcoming crowds. He thought their greeting to be less ardent than had been those which had met him when he had entered Tlascala. But he had no cause for complaint. They cheered: they threw flowers.

      He looked round on finer buildings, he looked down on wider, cleaner streets than he had seen before in this land. He noticed that the Cholulans were more gaily and richly dressed. He said to Marina: "Since I landed on your coasts, each city to which I come is finer than I have seen before."

      "Yes?" She said, unimpressed. "But you have not seen Mexico yet."

      They rode on to one of the numberless temple buildings, which had been prepared for their reception. It had many rooms, and a spacious courtyard, sufficient for all to camp who could not be accommodated within the building. They were supplied with ample and varied food. The weather was fine. The visit had started well.

      Next morning they were visited by some of the governing caciques of the city. They offered additional lodging accommodation, which Cortéz declined, preferring to keep his men together, and to be with them. They offered to show their visitors the sights of the city, but gave a warning against wandering without escort, there being unruly elements of which to beware. That might be meant well, or in another way.

      Taking a bold risk, Cortéz accepted an invitation next day for him and his principal officers to be shown the city.

      They went through busy, crowded, prosperous streets. There were priests everywhere, usually white-robed, some with faces grotesquely blackened. There were many professional beggars. There were pilgrims, variously attired, from every country of the civilised Western World. The scent of incense was everywhere. There were tower-crowned temples in every street.

      They climbed the huge central pyramid. They entered a temple erected to the great Teacher who had been deified after his death for his wisdom and gentle ways; but now his altars were stained by the shedding of human blood.

      His image, in the midst, was grotesque and black, but its jewels, of sceptre and mitred crown, would have bought a kingdom in the Old World.

      The next day there was another of the incessant embassies from Montezuma. Unlike the last, it made it clear that the Aztec Emperor did not wish his city to be more nearly approached. When Cortéz replied that he was acting on the invitation he had already had, they became openly resentful. They went abruptly, with less of courtesy than any previous embassy had shown. And there had been no gifts.

      Cortéz asked, when they had left: "What is the meaning of that? Does Montezuma wish to pick a quarrel with me?"

      Marina asked: "But why should he wish for that?"

      It was shrewdly thought. If violence or treachery were the design, he would gain nothing by showing a warning hand.

      After a short silence, she said: "Hernán, have you thought that it may have been a last effort to turn us back in a peaceful way?. ... Before he give the word for another course that he is reluctant to take?"

      "Yes. I was thinking of that."

      "I will find out what I can."

      Cortéz had another invitation to go abroad on the next day, which he declined.

      Marina, protected by her colour and dress, wandered about the city, and visited the wife of one of the caciques, who had shown a friendly disposition to her. She suggested to her a remedy for a sick child, which was efficacious, and won thanks. But she learned little. When she came back she said: "They seem guarded in what they say. Most of them know who I am, or I might learn more. They are curious to find out exactly when we shall leave."

      "Which shall not be known till the last hour," Cortéz replied. He planned to remain still for a time, and then to move suddenly.

      He sent out three porters as spies. They slipped out in the night. He thought that they were not likely to be observed in the cosmopolitan crowds of that pilgrim city. They came back with a tale which was not pleasant to hear.

      "As you go on toward the northern gate, at which it will be natural to leave the town, you come to places where pits have been dug across the width of the streets. They are well covered now, but they could be so lightly boarded that a man would pass in safety, but a loaded horse would fall through. And the lesser streets are barricaded on either side. Also, there are large stones on the terraced platforms of many roofs, so shaped that they could be heaved over with ease." They added that the streets were less crowded than had been the case on the previous day, so that it had not been as easy as they had expected to return unobserved.

      Alvarado, riding out alone to the Tlascalan camp, in his gallant, insolent way, heard further tales of the same kind, which he took in a laughing mood.

      "Hernándo," he said, on his return, "the rats think they have trapped the cat. There is net here to be broken through!... ... They say the army of Montezuma, which lay five miles south of the city, is moving close up to its walls. There have been many leaving the city, merchants and pilgrims, and few come. Women and children have been leaving during the night. The pits are a fact, and there are great stakes within them, on to which the horses are meant to fall... ... They will wait till we are marching out, and then assault us by every means, and from every side. Shall we endure that?"

      It was gravely asked. But his eyes danced with the excitement of strife to be. Cortéz said: "I am well served. Being warned, we shall find away."

      But what was it to be? He could stay there as long as he would, while they dug more pits, and put more stones on the roof. And perhaps while six thousand Tlascalan allies fought against twenty thousand of Montezuma's best troops. Would there be profit in that? And how long could even that possibility be? This was the first day that no provisions had come.

      Marina entered. She said: "I have the wife of one of the city's lords in my own room. She is a good friend. I have been packing to leave you, and she is finishing what I began."

      Cortéz looked at her with bewildered eyes. She was one who would often smile, but would seldom jest. He asked: "What do you mean by that?"

      "What I say. I am to leave after dark, and she will stay to help me, for I have much that I wish to carry away... ... It is to save my life. Surely you would wish that!"

      "Will you tell me more?"

      "I will tell you more. But I must have your word that no harm shall be hers."

      "It is as you will. Should you doubt that? But I think you have that to tell which should not be delayed."

      "There is time enough. She is a good friend. I saved her child. She asked me to spend this night in her house, and was too persistent for it to have been for a light cause. I said little, and she made a wrong guess that I was not loyal to you. When I began to pack as one who would not return, she said enough to show that she would save me from a mean death."

      Cortéz called the guard. He ordered that the woman should be fetched from Marina's room. When she had been brought he said: "Tell her that she has nothing to fear; but we must know all."

      In the end they did. She had, in fact, said too much to become dumb.

      Montezuma had sent rich gifts, as his way was, but this time they had been for Cholula's caciques. He had required their co-operation in the elimination of these pestilent invaders, which they had not refused. The hour of massacre was now near, and she had been anxious to save a friend. "Am I?" She asked Marina, "to die because I would have saved you?"

      "Tell her," Cortéz said, "that what she would have done for you we will do for her. She will stay here, which may be a safer place than she would be likely to think. And I will save her husband also, if it can be done by looking another way."

Chapter 39

Massacre

      The two priests had been attached to the temple which had been cleared to make room for its present guests. They had been transferred to a nearby shrine, and Cortéz had had them fetched, on an excuse which had been easy to make.

      They sat opposite to him, entirely at ease, waiting for Marina to explain why they had been asked to come.

      Cortéz said: "The priests always know. Tell them that they must confess all, or they will be dead men in the next hour."

      "But they will not flinch from that. They will think only of what their gods would wish them to do."

      "Then what can be said?"

      "Shall I tell them you will cut off their hands? They will have heard that you do that."

      Cortéz smiled in a way that the watchful priests, who were no fools, did not like. He said: "I can do better. Tell them that I will peel the skin from their legs, from the knees down, and that they shall walk back on the bare flesh to escape what worse punishment I should otherwise be certain to do... ... Promise gifts, and what else you will."

      She talked to the priests for a time, and Cortéz saw that they were frightened men, but that their faces cleared as she went on.

      Then she said: "I told them about skinning their legs, which they did not like. I told them also that they can have a gift of gold, and go back as they are, if they will tell what they know; and that none can guess what they will have said, for it will remain private to us. They agree that that will be the much better way."

      After that, she talked to them again, and then said: "It is much as you supposed, but they say that Montezuma has really been in a great doubt as to what he shall do, which is hard to believe. He first said that you were to be treated well; but after that there was a consultation of the gods, and it was revealed that there would be a great massacre in this city, leading to peace. It would have been strange if he had not taken advantage of that."

      "Did you say that we have no fear of their gods?"

      "I told them that your God is so much greater than any of theirs that he keeps many scores of such shut up in a palace of fire, because they were disrespectful to Him. They did not like that at all, for all men already know that we have a God who is potent to have His way. It made them more ready to talk than they were before.

      "They say it is true that Montezuma has sent great gifts to their rulers here. He has also sent poles and thongs by which those who are captured alive (which they will seek to contrive) will be sent to Mexico for ceremonial sacrifice there. But they are to keep one in five of you, and one in twenty of the Tlascalans, for their own altars, that they also may have cause to rejoice."

      "Then there is no doubt that all we have heard is true... ... Tell them that we shall leave the city before noon tomorrow. They need have no fear when they say that, for it is how I intend it to be. They will ask that the city's lords, or some of them, shall be here at prime of day, when I shall have thanks to give them, and a last favour to ask. If they can spare me five hundred porters for the short march to Mexico I will thank them and pay them well. They must not fail here, for till I have seen them I cannot leave."

      The priests went, thinking that they had done little harm, or even that the information they had obtained might be of advantage to those of their own part. Also, they had a present of gold, which they did not despise, for its dust was currency there, as it was in the Old World.

      They gave the message to those for whom it was meant, and were prudently careful to say nothing of the betrayal that they had made.

      When they were gone, Cortéz called his officers to Council, and listened first to those of faint heart, who thought that, caught in such a trap, and surrounded by so strong a body of foes, both within and without, they would do well to attempt escape during the night, rejoining the Tlascalans, and retiring with them to the mountain strength which was theirs.

      But when they had spent their words, bolder voices prevailed, and so, when they were in the right mood, Cortéz told them of what he planned to do when the morning should come.

      After that, there was sharpening of weapons, and repairing of armour for breast and back; and Bernal Diaz had horses groomed and well fed, that they should be equal to any need.

      It was not yet fully light when Cortéz requested that the Mexican ambassadors, who were lodged in the next street, should come to take their farewells, which they were ready to do. The victims were about to march forth to their doom, and nothing must be done or omitted to cause suspicion which was not supposed to exist.

      They came prepared with words which would have been false and fair, but they had their first doubt when they found that they were not received by Cortéz and Marina alone, but were quickly surrounded by armed men of a hostile mien. And the doubt became something worse when Cortéz said: "Tell them that we know, that we may hear what they can do for the saving of their own lives," which Marina did, in words which were straight and few, as her way was.

      But the accusation was met by exclamations of blank astonishment. Montezuma knew nothing of any plot, which he would neither approve nor condone. It was the false Cholulans who must be blamed.

      Had there been the faintest reason to regard these protests as genuine, it might have been expedient to enlist their aid to bring Cholula to a more peaceful mood. But, however, little they might be believed, Cortéz saw that there might be advantages in avoiding an open quarrel with Mexico. He said: "Tell them that we had heard before that Cholula is a city where treason breeds, and it is pleasant to hear that their Emperor is not so base a sort... ... For the time, they shall remain here, which will be safest for them, and will be proof that they will have no part in that which is about to occur."

      They were led away under a strong guard, as three of the city's rulers were shown in.

      They came confidently. It was to be the final act of ceremonial courtesy which would satisfy the Spaniards of their goodwill as they marched out to the waiting trap.

      One of them said, before Marina started to speak: "We had your message, and have brought the porters which you require. It was a pleasure to do."

      Cortéz could believe that, for, as it was said, Alvarado entered the door of the crowded room, and gave a nod which told him all he needed to know. The five hundred men were not porters at all, but soldiers in porters' garb, and with concealed knives, such as no porter should bear. They were crowding into the courtyard now, which might be unhealthy for them. For Cortéz had made his own preparations during the night. Having made it known that he was to leave, what could be more natural than that he should be sending messengers to the Tlascalan camp, or that there should be noise in the courtyard of artillery being dragged about? The Cholulans were less watchful of him than fearful lest their own movements should be suspect.

      Marina was translating now: "We know what the porters are. We know all your plots. You will do well to confess."

      Their complacency suddenly gone, their dusky faces pallid with fear, they muttered among themselves. Then their spokesman said: "Whatever may have been proposed was against our will. It is Montezuma's order that you must blame, and not us."

      "But Montezuma's envoys say that you had no orders from him... ... You can go back to your porters. Take them away - if you can."

      Not understanding the meaning of this, the bewildered men went out to the courtyard, none staying them; but, as they appeared there, a shot was fired, which was the signal to wake it to dreadful life.

      The five hundred had been marshalled in the centre of the crowded yard, and now the Spanish soldiers attacked them with every weapon they had, and from every side. Their knives were no match for the Spanish swords. It was slaughter rather than strife. The gods of Mexico were to have the massacre which they had foretold.

      Those who struggled to reach the gates (of which there were three) were met by a line of pikes.

      Comrades from without, roused by the shots, who tried to rush for their rescue, were met by the blasts of cannon - a form of thunder of which they had heard marvellous tales, but which had not come to their ears until it sounded a death-knell now. A few escaped by lying quietly under the slain. One athlete clambered over the wall.

      But almost all of the five hundred died, and no one troubled to search for the Cholulan rulers among the slain.

      By now, the Tlascalans, not waiting for the Aztec army to appear, had forced a way through the city gates, and were attacking the rear of those who were trying to force their way into the courtyard, and already having trouble enough from the heavy Spanish fire that poured forth from the narrow width of the gate.

      In the end, their abortive losses being beyond further endurance, they turned, and fled through the streets, with the outbreaking Spaniards upon their heels, and six thousand Tlascalans, and more of Totonacs and promiscuous recruits than anyone had been careful to count, following closely behind.

      The main body of fugitives made for the great central mound and the crowning temple, impelled by thought of its defendable strength, or a blind instinct to seek the protection of their peculiar gods, Spaniards and Tlascalans (the latter distinguished, through Cortéz' prudent foresight, by wreaths of sedge round their heads) slaying industriously on their rear.

      The havoc and confusion were increased by the Tlascalans (waging war in the fashion they understood) firing such buildings as were of wood, or of which the walls were hanging reeds, as was common to the private houses, so that the narrow streets filled with smoke, and their sides became raging flame.

      The great central temple, which could only be reached by the climbing of six score steps, offered prospect of successful resistance, but the Spaniards stormed upward against volleys of shafts and stones. The building was largely of stone, but its towers were of gilded wood, and were soon sheets of flame and ascending smoke to a windless sky.

      The army of Montezuma, camped to the southward of the city wall, could not doubt the significance of that pillar of smoke and flame. But it did not move. It maintained the enigmatic character of the Aztec attitude by remaining quiescent throughout the day, and so gave apparent support to the protestations that the envoys had made, and support for the attitude Cortéz adopted when he released them on the next day.

      It is possible that the detention of these envoys was the direct cause of the inactivity of the Aztec host. They may have been entrusted by Montezuma with authority to direct its movements according to the developments within the city, so that it was immobilised when the critical moment came and no orders arrived.

      But within the city panic and plunder ruled. Fires burned unchecked, and Spaniard, Tlascalan, and Totonac, chased and slew; or turned to looting a city rich with the choicest wealth of the Western World.

      Resistance soon became slight from a people who were not naturally warlike, who had depended upon treachery and surprise, whose plans had failed, and whose essential leaders were seized or dead.

      The blocks of stone on the terraced roofs, now hidden in rising smoke, were not cast down on the confusion of friends and foes that raged and shouted below. The exultant whistles of the Tlascalans shrilled through the din.

      Wholesale massacre and outrage might have been the fate of a city that had ceased to offer any organised resistance, and cowered in terror before its triumphant foes. But, in that moment of excited victory, Cortéz achieved a miracle of control both over his own men, and allies with whom he could only communicate by translated eloquence, with Marina's aid.

      The soldiers were brought back to their ordered ranks. Further promiscuous looting of the unwalled houses was forbidden. It was announced that any violence to women would incur prompt and merciless punishment.

      The head cacique, and other leading officials, had died on the temple hill, but one was found to whom Cortéz delegated authority to proclaim that those who went about their peaceful affairs would have nothing to further to fear.

      In the two hours of wild confusion and massacre, the losses of the Spaniards had been negligible, and that of their allies had been very light. Even the Cholulan dead, including those who had been trapped in the courtyard did not exceed three thousand - a moderate total which may be largely explained by the fact that the Tlascalans, as resistance slackened, had sought to capture rather than kill, as their method of warfare was.

      Father Olmedo, active in the mission of Christ, as the occasion required, saw their captives being led away to the Tlascalan camp - hundreds of every rank, women and children among them, walking with bound hands, to be sent back to Tlascala, put into the fattening pens of the priests, and slaughtered as their condition suggested, or provision for a festival might require.

      He went to Cortéz, whom he found, with Marina inseparably at his side, busy with many urgent affairs, but with time to listen to him.

      "Hernán", he said, with the familiarity of address that friendship and his position allowed, "you must stop this. Can we retain the blessing of God, if we hold alliance with those who blaspheme his image in such unspeakable ways?"

      "I would stop it with glad mind. Marina, will they listen to me in this?"

      There was doubt in Marina's eyes as she replied: "You would ask much. It is the universal custom of war. And you cannot expect them to understand of what you complain. When you fight, you kill men in many barbarous ways. When they fight, they capture them to be killed on a later day in a more civilised manner.

      "You do not like to eat human flesh, and they will say that they respect your custom, and do not serve it to you. Why should you not respect theirs?"

      There was a moment's silence when she had said this. They knew that, if they should quarrel with the Tlascalans, they might be equal to that, though the difference would be ten to one.

      And, in fact, the worst that would be likely to happen would be that they would refuse to surrender their captives, and go home in a sulky way.

      But there were twenty thousand Aztecs on the further side of the city wall, not three miles away.

      Cortéz said: "I am held here. I must talk to the Mexican envoys at once, for which there may now be additional cause.

      "You will ride yourself to the Tlascalan camp. Bernal will be your guard. You will say that the voice is yours, but the words mine. The captives will be released in the next hour. It is an order from me, which my God requires, and it will not change though the skies fall... ... You will put it in the best way, as you ever do."

      Marina said: "I will go at once." She looked undisturbed, as her way was.

      Father Olmedo said: "God will bless you, my son, for this, though we should all die."

      Cortéz was unconcerned. He smiled: "We shall all die at our own time; but we live now."

      He sent for the Mexican envoys, to whom he said: "I have observed that your army has not broken camp while I have dealt with the treason here, and I can the better accept your assurances that your Emperor was not concerned. But I do not know why they are so near. Will it please you to move them further away?"

      They promised that this should be done at once, and painted an order to that effect, which Cortéz, as he could not read it, kept back for Marina to see.

      But, on her return, she said it was a plain direction for them to march back to Mexico, and next morning their camp was empty, and the mystery of the Mexican attitude still unsolved, though Cortéz thought it policy to accept the assurances he received.

      Regarding her mission to the Tlascalan camp, Marina said: "There were angry words from all, and some would have defied you in a bold way. But I made it plain that it was a matter on which you would neither bargain nor yield. I asked them, would they have fired Cholula without your aid? Would they have taken captives except for you? So they let them go free, though with sullen looks; and, after that, I made a bargain about the spoil."

      Cortéz looked grave when she said this, and there was as instant silence and anxious looks from those standing around.

      It was good news indeed that the Tlascalans had given way to a request which must have seemed perverse to them, and sacrificed that which was regarded as the main spoil of war, and evidence of its success. But the question of the division of the spoil was also serious in another way, and while she was absent it had been the subject of hot debate. Cortéz had seen, with inward dismay, that it might be necessary to make a further demand on their allies, which, after what had just happened, they might be most loth to concede.

      The Tlascalans, apart from their living captures, had taken a far richer spoil than had fallen into Spanish hands. They were far more numerous, and they had taken no part in the most serious fighting, which had occurred in the storming of the great mound, and the destruction of the temple upon its summit. They had followed the rear of the Spaniards, taking captives and other spoils, as was their habit of war, which had been an almost unobstructed process, owing to the hanging reeds of the unwalled houses offering no obstacle to their intrusions.

      Now that order was being restored, and stern directions given that there should be no further looting, the Spanish soldiers had become aware that they had made little profit, unless there should be distribution of the spoil on a different basis.

      Cortéz had actually been debating how far he could go in this matter, if Marina should have succeeded in securing the release of what the Tlascalans would regard as the most valuable part of the prey. At the best, it could not be expected that it would leave them in good temper to hear a further demand. Now it seemed that Marina had used it, without authority, as a bargaining point of a reverse kind. It had an ominous sound.

      But she looked equably at the anxious or scowling faces around her. She said "It is what I had no license to do, but I think you may be content. The gold and silver and precious stones, of which there is much spoil, are to be surrendered to you, for they hold them in light esteem, but of garments and provisions they are to have not less than four parts in five, and, in particular, they are to take all they will of a store of salt over which they have placed a guard, for they value that at a great price, having none, for their way to the sea is through hostile lands."

      There was no murmur at that. She saw approval in the eyes of him from whom she esteemed it most.

      "Hernán," she said, "that rent in your doublet sleeve will be ill to mend."

      She went in to their own room, knowing that she had won praise, which she may have thought she deserved. She twisted fresh flowers in her hair.

Chapter 40

The March To Mexico

      Cortéz remained at Cholula during fourteen eventful days.

      The Tlascalan army remained encamped without. They sent a long train of porters, laden with salt and many other desirable things, back to their own land, in evidence that those who allied themselves with the Spaniards throve well.

      The threat of the Aztec army had moved away.

      Cortéz remained in the quarters which had first been placed at his disposal, but he was lord of a city now which feared him with a great dread, and was grateful for a clemency which had so quickly followed the chastisement which it had deserved and received. Its rulers were now of his own appointment. Commercial activities were quickly resumed.

      The temples of its many religions were allowed (after some argument between the zealous commander and the more Judicious Father Olmedo) to reopen, but release of the Tlascalans' captives was made the basis of a demand for similar freedom for all who were in the pens of Cholula's priests, which could not be denied.

      It was announced that the ruins of the great central temple which, from the height of its flattened pyramid, could be seen far over the surrounding country, would be restored in the altered form of a Christian church, and the impetuous energy of Cortéz was such that, before he left, a huge wooden cross had already been erected, making Christianity the most assertive among the many creeds and deities of that city of ancient faiths; and Father Jeronimo, whose services as an interpreter were no longer essential, and whose knowledge of some at least of the languages of the New World rendered him particularly fit for the office, was installed as the bishop of a diocese which was yet to be.

      There was gratifying evidence of the reputation which the Spaniards had gained in the visits, during the fortnight's pause, of caciques from neighbouring towns, with offers of friendship, and aid if need should be, and gifts which were little in comparison with those that came from the Mexican court, but substantial in relation to the resources of those who gave. There was nothing in these visits necessarily treasonable to Montezuma, for he was still professedly at peace with the invading strangers, but Marina, talking to them with the freedom that only one of her birth and native understanding could have done, reported that the purpose of these visits was not in doubt. They had shown resentment of the tyranny and exactions of the central power. They wished it to be understood that hostility to it would have their sympathy if not their open support.

      There was only one warning, though it was of an emphatic kind, of the formidable nature of the enterprise on which Cortéz was inflexibly resolved. The leaders of the Totonacs came to him to announce a decision to go no further on a road which had become too perilous. It was a sinister incident, both in itself and its implications.

      The Totonacs had done good service. Although not very numerous, they had been an important addition to the little army he led. Individually, they were of the elite of the peoples of these new lands: taller, handsomer, though not tougher than the Tlascalans, and equal in aspect and manners, though not in attire, to most of the Aztecs who had so far appeared.

      Now they made it clear that, even after all they had seen and shared, they regarded further advance as an almost insane adventure. They suggested that Cortéz had even yet no adequate conception of Aztec power. And further advance to the capital must be by roads where the destruction of the invaders could easily be arranged.

      Mexico, like Cholula, like Tlascala, was the centre of its own plain. But the plains were not on the same level. The road to Mexico was a hard climb: there were defiles where those who entered could be destroyed by rocks flung from above, while their assailants remained secure. It was true that Montezuma might intend to give the Christians a peaceful reception. No one knew what his final intentions might be. From ocean to ocean, all watched, and wondered, and waited for what would be. But there was a tale that the shorter road was being blocked by the felling of great trees, which had been cast across it. There was no evidence of goodwill in that. And even if Montezuma should offer friendship to the Spaniards, through caution lest he offend their God (who had shown His power), it was certain that such clemency would not be extended to them.

      Cortéz accepted with apparent readiness a decision which he saw that he would be unlikely to change. He thanked the Totonacs for good service done. He made gifts. He asked only that they should take back a letter to his captain at Vera Cruz.

      His thoughts turned from the unknown perils that lay ahead to those which were ominous on his rear. He had not yet heard anything of how Puerto-Carrero and his colleague had fared. If they had obeyed his instructions, and avoided landing in Cuba, they should be in Madrid before now. The die which would allow potential success or be certain ruin to him, might have been cast. But it was too soon for the result of his mission to be known in the New World. What was sure, in the meantime, was that the Cuban Governor would be doing all the harm he could.

      He wrote to Escalante:

"My dear Juan,

      Our Totonac friends, who bear this letter, have done me good service. They dread the Aztecs. What ever else may happen, they must not have cause to regret that they have been loyal to us.

      Continue to strengthen your defences. Build - build - build. Never cease to watch the seas. Do not hesitate to resist whoever would seize our right, unless they have direct authority from Madrid.

      I enclose a full account of all that has happened since I left Vera Cruz, both for your information, and that there may be record if we should be destroyed - which I do not fear. We have the protection of God, bearing His faith among idolatrous men.

Your governor and friend,

Hernándo Cortéz."

      Two days after the Totonacs left, the little Spanish army, led by its group of horsemen, and followed by its artillery, the long train of laden porters, and the more numerous Tlascalan army, marched out, between crowds of flower-throwing civilians, on the road to Mexico.

      Uncertain whether they were captives or honoured guests, and too circumspect to test the doubt, the Aztec envoys continued with them. Having no wheeled vehicles, or beasts of burden, they were accustomed to use their legs, but, even so, there were differences of physique between politicians and priests and porters, and these envoys were weary men when, after the long march had wound its slow way for many miles through land that was luxuriant with ripened crops, and the sun was descending the autumn sky, they came to a place where the road forked, and the signal to halt was called and whistled back to the distant rear.

      A man of their own race came to them, where they walked in the midst of the long processions, where the gold and the women were. He said, with respect, but as one who brings an order that must be quickly obeyed: "The General desires speech."

      They followed him to the front, where a dozen horses moved restlessly, as their riders debated the meaning of what they saw.

      Cortéz was there, Marina, on a bay stallion (the lightest of the heavy cavalry horses) at his side.

      He pointed to the right-hand way, which was barricaded with fallen trees. "Ask them," he said, as their eyes followed the direction he indicated, "what is the meaning of that?"

      He must wait for minutes during which there were rapid exchanges in the unknown tongue with an interpreter who knew more of the topography of the land than they would have supposed they would have to face.

      Then she said: "They allow that this block has been made by the Emperor's orders, and that its intention is to cause you to take the left-hand road, but they say that it is meant in kindness to you. The road they have closed may be the more direct way (as I know it is), but they say it is narrow and bad, and of steepness, at its worst, which the horses would be unable to overcome."

      "Do you believe that?"

      "It may have some truth, though not much. But it could have been said in a better way."

      "So I think. Tell them it is our habit to go by the shorter road."

      He ordered that camp should be made, and that porters should be called up to clear the obstacles from the path.

      They moved forward next morning upon a road which was certainly becoming steep, though not yet of extreme difficulty either for horses or laden men. The air grew colder as they advanced. They knew that they were at a great height, having done so much upward marching since they had left the shore two months earlier; but as they looked right or left the impression was of being at a great depth, for they were entering a pass between two of the highest mountains of the New World.

      "That," Marina said, looking northward, "is our greatest mountain: The Hill that Smokes. Have you any such in your land?"

      They gazed at Popocatepetl, exceeding by two thousand feet the greatest of Alpine heights. A black plume of smoke rose from its volcanic crest to the autumn sky.

      "There is none such in my own land," he answered cautiously, "but there are great mountains beyond, which I have not seen."

      They looked southward to a mountain of kindred bulk, but a quieter kind - the White Woman, Marina called it - showing bright smooth flanks of eternal snow.

      There was one side, she said, from which it really had a vague resemblance to a woman's form, though of course the whiteness - and then stopped, aware that she had been near to unmannerly speech. The Spaniards couldn't help their queer colour, and in any case, it wasn't white like that. It even turned to a quite decent brown when it was exposed to the sun. All the Tlascalan brides agreed that, though it had been repellent at first, they were getting used to it now. For herself, she had loved too greatly to care. (And what difference did it make in the dark?) But she had a doubt of sickening horror at times as to what colour her child might be.

      Her thoughts were interrupted by the voice of Diego de Ordaz, the cavalier who was riding at her left hand. "Dona, has it been climbed?"

      "No. I suppose that none could, and it is likely that none would dare the cold slippery sides, and the heat above.

      "Besides, men believe that demons dwell in such torment there as causes them to cast fire abroad, as they often do. They are said to be the spirits of rulers who did evil before they died."

      "You believe that?"

      "How should I know?" She gave him one of her quiet smiles. "You can go to look, if you will."

      "So I shall, if I have leave."

      Cortéz spoke, from her other side: "It may be tried, if you will. You are young. Your feet may hold and your breath last. But I should not like you to fail."

      There was a halt on the next day for the laden porters to rest. They were in the midst of dense forests; but the volcanic mountain looked very near.

      Diego's idea had become a plan. Nine Spaniards had volunteered to join him, and four Tlascalans had said they would make the attempt in such company, though they would not have done it alone.

      They set out at dawn with store of food and such aids to climbing or protection from frozen heights as their foresight suggested, and their resources supplied. They had valour, but little skill for the attempt. At sunset the four Tlascalans returned.

      They said that at first the forest had been so dense that their progress had been slow, but, as they went on and up, it had changed its character. There had been no more undergrowth. The straight boles of great pines had been round them, and there had been a soft carpet of pine needles beneath their feet.

      Then they had left the pinewoods beneath them. They had gained heights where vegetation failed. Still they had gone upward, although they could now hear the demons bellowing beneath their feet. Soon the bare precipitous slopes became white with hard-frozen snow. They breathed with difficulty in a thin air. The wind was bitter against their backs.

      Exhausted by the hazardous, slippery, hard ascent, they had camped under the sheltering side of a great rock, and debated whether more could be done. Around them was bitter cold. Far above was black smoke, lit at times by quick-flickering flame. They looked upward to treacherous heights where a snowslide, a single footslip, would cast them to inescapable death.

      The Tlascalans said that they decided to go no farther, not that they were cowards, but because they were sensible men. What was there more to see, or to where should they hope to go?

      Would they penetrate the region of fire where the demons howled? Would they swallow the burning cinders on which they fed? No. They came back because they could gain nothing further by going on.

      But the Spaniards had decided to continue the climb - and nothing more, they supposed, would be heard of them.

      Cortéz listened, and was well content. He did not wish to lose ten of his best men, and he saw danger of that. But he knew that his present security (precarious at the best) was founded on the admission of European superiority, the prestige of the men he led. He praised the courage of those who spoke, and approved what they had done.

      As the next day waned, and the adventurers did not return, he asked Marina what was being said about them in the camp, in the strange tongues he was only beginning to understand. She said: "It will mean much that they return. It is said that your God challenges those of this land, even in their stronghold of fire. There will be many at Father Olmedo's font on the next day."

      "You do not doubt that they will return?"

      "Diego will. He has your eyes. They are eyes that win."

      "I should have said that his are darker than mine."

      "So they may be. I did not mean that. They are eyes that laugh in a very resolute way."

      "Have they skill to see in the dark? It is that they will soon need, for the night is near."

      So it was; but in the next hour they came. They were ten sound-limbed, but most weary men. Two of them brought a quaint evidence that they had climbed to the frozen heights - a huge dripping icicle, slung on a pole.

      Diego said he had failed. They had climbed to a point where the air was hot, the smoke dense, and falling cinders had burned their clothes, as was plain to see. But they had been turned back by that fiery shower. They might have been near the summit. But he thought not.

      However that might be, Cortéz said that they had done boldly and well. He wrote a generous account of the incident for the Court of Spain, to be sent on when the next opportunity should come. As a result, the House of Ordaz quarters a flaming volcano on its coat-of-arms to this day.

      The march resumed. The road twisted upward toward a curtain of rock, far lower than the two mountains, but yet at a great height, an unavoidable barrier intervening between them. The air became bitter cold, and the slowly ascending column encountered tempests of sleet and rain.

      The hardships of the march were partially mitigated by the fact that the Mexican government had provided shelters at regular intervals. They were solid buildings, substantial and commodious. They sheltered the women, and those who were hurt or sick; and the horses, which Bernal regarded as far more important than they - a preference to which the facts gave some support.

      Cortéz looked at these buildings with thoughtful eyes. Their provision was an indication of the settled civilisation of the people on whom he was thrusting his obviously unwelcome presence. Their substantial character was ominous of its most formidable power.

      The day came when they ceased to climb. As the little group of horsemen led the advance on the winding rock-walled road they came to a sudden bend, and next moment were looking down on the wide expanse of the Aztec plain.

Chapter 41

Montezuma's Land

      In the clear sunlit air, eight thousand feet above the level of the ocean which they had left less than three months before, the cavaliers looked down on a wide plain which stretched to the limit of vision, where it was bounded by rocky hills as red as those upon which they stood.

      They saw green forests, and fields in which rich crops ripened, still unmown (for the season was later in this high plain than in those they had passed before). They saw still lakes, in the midst of the largest of which a great city stood, with palaces and temples that shone in the morning sun.

      They saw other cities, gardens and orchards, woodlands, and fields of ripe grain and abundant flowers, that stretched to the far limit of the great plain, the whole of which, from ruin to ruin, resembled an enormous opulent palace garden - the affluent centre of Aztec power.

      The band of steelclad cavaliers - formidable, but so few! - gazed down in silence upon a scene of cultured luxuriance, which outdid all that had been forecast by cold doubts or audacious dreams. They had imagined much, but not this.

      Beside these palatial cities, these mile-wide garden grounds, Tlascala was a place of hovels: Cholula a vulgar slum.

      Cortéz said: "That is plainly Mexico, in the midst of the central lake. There are woods on the further shore, and white towers beyond. What are they?"

      "Yes. That is Mexico," Marina replied. "It is the lake of Tezcuco; and it is the city of Tezcuco that lies beyond. It was the ancient capital, before Mexico was built, and its splendour remains today. The prince of Tezcuco is young, but he one of our greatest kings."

      "And that city, also in its own lake, that is nearer to us?"

      "That is Cuitlahuco. The Lake is Chalco. You can see the causeway which crosses the lake, and the low ground (which is flooded at times, so that the two lakes become one), for several miles. It is a fine city, but, compared with Mexico, it is of little account."

      Those around listened to what was said, but they said little themselves.

      They saw that they were at the climax of the high folly of that which some of them had been eager, and some persuaded, to do.

      And they felt differently now. They were alike in recognising that they were confronted by a magnificence of civilisation, and formidable confidence of unchallenged power, beyond anything that they hoped or feared or expected to meet. But they reacted variously to this entrancing, menacing scene which was spread out beneath them. To some, it was a final warning of the destruction which must be theirs, if they should make further advance: to others a richer lure than they had expected to see.

      Perhaps only Cortéz was mentally comprehensive of these conflicting attitudes, the extremity of the risks he took being as clearly seen, as accurately weighed, as was the vastness of the prize which success might bring.

      Perhaps Marina alone was entirely, serenely, confident that there was no occasion to doubt at all.

      Diego de Ordaz showed the puzzled doubt that lay behind the sanguine audacity of his disposition, as he exclaimed: "Had they meant to stay us, would it not have been done before we had come free of the mountain roads?"

      And Pedro de Alvarado, sanguine and bold as he, but of longer practice in the warfare of the New World, touched the weak point of that argument when he replied: "Yes. But they did not mean us to come this way. What should we have met had we come by the southern road?"

      Cortéz had the same thought. But he was inclined to the view that vigorous direction would have found time to adjust itself. He wondered, as he had done many times, what the explanation of Montezuma's enigmatic attitude might be. Was it possible that it was the weakness of irresolution? That his own inflexible determination had encountered a wavering will? There was much to support that interpretation, but, against it, was the Emperor's established reputation throughout the land. Surely all men could not be wrong! Surely they were not sternly, if justly, ruled, or brought to reluctant subordination by one who could not, during many weeks, resolve what his course should be.

      Wary, doubtful, alert of mind, with smiling eyes that looked right and left in ceaseless vigilance and enquiry, with frequent questions to Marina as to the meanings of what he saw, Cortéz led the little cavalcade on a road that now sloped so sharply downward that their chargers must tread with care, and be held on a steady rein; while behind them came the long procession that still stretched backward for more than two miles in the narrow twisting defile.

      They moved slowly, a contingent of steel-capped spearmen being followed by the artillery, with the drag-ropes pulling no longer, but holding back the guns on the falling way. Behind them came a body of laden porters, with the treasure, ammunition, records, and the officer's personal effects: then the women: then the main force of the Spaniards: then the more numerous Tlascalan ranks: then the main body of the porters bearing food and baggage for seven thousand men: and last a rearguard, not large, but selected with care, arquebus and crossbow showing amidst a ring of protecting spears.

      As the day passed, they came to a land of hamlets and fertile farms. The inhabitants, at some points, lined the road thickly, curious, friendly, offering not swords but flowers.

      Marina talked to them, as Cortéz would have her do, and said they praised the Emperor's rule, if at all, with most grudging words: their young men were conscripted for ceaseless wars, from which many did not return: their young women were required to become the consorts of Aztec nobles.

      The exact nature of the second grievance was not simple to understand, under a social system which did not regard polygamy as a derogation of womanhood, did not recognise any status but that of wife, and in which infidelity was a most exceptional vice. But Cortéz said that they should be met with vaguely comforting words: "Do not say that we are hostile to Montezuma. But assure them that a new time has come, and that all grievances will be smoothed away. Tell them they will be under the protection of a most potent God."

      The sun was still high when they were met with another embassy from the Aztec ruler. It brought the usual munificent gifts: it made the usual request that the Spaniards would return home. It offered astonishing bribes: four loads of gold for Cortéz himself, and one each for his cavaliers, with the promise of a yearly tribute of gold for his distant King, if only he would return without penetrating into the centre of Aztec power.

      But the embassy had come too late. It had lost its point. The Spaniards were already there. The fact was that it had been sent to meet them on the other road. It had not turned back till it had learned that Cortéz had forced his way along the shorter, steeper route.

      Now it came in belated, literal obedience to its instructions, doing no more than give further indication of the very subtle or very timorous policy of the Aztec throne.

      Cortéz took the gifts. He sent back a courteous, but uncompromising reply. It was too late to turn back. The subjects raised by the envoys could be dealt with best at a personal interview. If his presence should prove unwelcome, perhaps his visit would not be long.

      In fact, whatever had been the impulse under which the mission had been dispatched, its effect was only to give greater confidence to those whom it sought to turn. Even if full allowance were made for the fact that gold was abundant and its limited utilities understood among the Aztecs sufficiently to lead them to give it with indifference for the satisfaction of Spanish greed, it remained that the continual efforts at bribery, and suggestions of future tribute (however insincere they might be) could only spring from diffidence or actual fear... ... Or was there some unguessable reason why Montezuma should be desperately anxious that the strangers should go without sight of the treasures that palace or capital might contain?

      Cortéz asked this of Marina, but, when she had told him all she knew, the problem remained unsolved.

Chapter 42

Counsel In Mexico

      Montezuma took counsel with those of his own house whom he trusted most, and who were nearest of blood to him - his brother, Cuitlahua, and his nephew, Cacama, who ruled in the older city of Tezcuco, beyond the lake.

      They sat together in his private audience chamber - a small room compared with the vastness of the main reception hall, but with a rich magnificence in its carved cedar-wood ceiling, its gorgeous matting, the priceless tapestries of glowing featherwork which concealed its walls.

      They sat or reclined on deep soft cushions around a table which was little more than a foot in height, that being the custom of the land. They had been served with chocolate by an attendant who wore a flowing garment embroidered in gold and green, which indicated that he was a noble of royal blood, for Montezuma disliked any less exalted attendance, and such servitors as the palace held (which is to say hundreds) who were nobles of lower birth, were required to wear coarse garments of unadorned cotton, that all might know how deep was the gulf which lay between them and those they served. The empty cups in which the chocolate had been served were still on the table. They were delicately, beautifully, but plainly made. Their quality, good though it might be, was ruled by the fact that they would never appear again. They would be given away. Fresh plate and pottery must appear at every public banquet or private meal at which the Emperor ate.

      His clothing, rich of texture, and richly wrought though it might be, was subject to the same rule. It looked new, as it was, for he never wore a garment twice, and might change as much as three or four times a day.

      He was tall, thin, dignified in appearance, remote in manner, restrained in speech, magnanimous if his pride were not touched, carelessly, lavishly generous with the wealth which hard taxation brought to his door from all parts of the World as he had known it up to three months ago.

      Three months ago, he had not doubted that he had been the first man in the World, both as king and priest. He would have put priest first. He had been priest for a longer time. When he had been told that he had become the greatest Emperor in the world, he had been found sweeping the temple steps.

      He had succeeded to the throne of a great conqueror, whose work had been well-nigh done. He had been the greatest prince in his world at that hour, and from that hour every year had seen his power more absolute, his dominions extended.

      Not that he had been an active warrior on many occasions himself. His brother, and other generals, took the field. But the honours had come to him. And each year he had grown more exact in observance of the religion of which he was the earthly head, and more exacting in the deferences which he required, both from noble and common men.

      Now he had been disturbed by these swarthy or pink-skinned invaders, who had landed from the sea, with talk - indeed themselves the proof - of the existence of a land of which he had known nothing before.

      They were absurdly few, but they brought strange weapons, strange beasts, and strange thunders that killed those who were far away.

      But these were terrors of which brave men should not be too greatly afraid. At sufficient expense of life, they could be wiped out. He had been advised of that from the first. His best generals were agreed upon it, and had urged him to give them a freer hand.

      He had not denied that their counsel was good, but he had been deterred by a great doubt. There was an old prophecy about a white God who would come from the Western Sea. He had doubted whether Cortéz were he. He was doubting still. If it were so, should he be opposed by the Chief Priest of the Faith? Would it be possible to oppose him successfully?

      Having the doubt, was it not an obvious precaution to do only that which the priestly oracles might advise?

      So he had aimed to do, and his resultant difficulty had been that the oracles had been far from clear, or, where they had been definite, as in advising the treachery of Cholula, their advice had not been fortunate in its results.

      After that failure, he had reverted to his intermittent attempts to bribe Cortéz to return to the sea with ever more sumptuous gifts, to which he had at last added an offer of perpetual tribute of the gold which the Spaniards showed such an incomprehensible passion to get. It would be a cheap bargain, if their absence could be bought with nothing of more value than that.

      Neither brother nor nephew had approved. The first said that it was a position which should be met not with gifts but swords; the second had merely said that it would only encourage the Spaniards to come on.

      He, at least, had been right. But Montezuma had intended that the final offer should be made before Cortéz could see the wealth of the Mexican plain. This intention had been frustrated by the forcing of the upper road, and the offer had been abortively, foolishly made when it was almost certain to be put aside, as they had just heard that it had been.

      It was a result which left Cuitlahua unmoved, or even something better than that, for he did not approve of these tributes of Mexican gold, and far more valuable things. He said: "First or last, you will find my advice good. It is what you will be obliged to do. Let me set on them with every sword that we have. They will be dead to the last man - to the last horse - in a day, or at most two. Be the cost to us heavy or light, we shall survive that, and all the gold they drag about with them with so much labour (but what else can they do with it? It is useless to eat or wear) will come back to us, with much better things, including the weapons that we have some reason to dread, but which yet can be overcome."

      Montezuma looked at him with troubled, irresolute eyes. In this private conference he allowed his emotions to appear as he would not otherwise have done. A stranger might have thought that they would all have been affected by the heavily scented air, which was that of a hundred rose gardens closed in one, but it was too natural to them for any influence to be felt.

      He said: "It all fails: violence or craft! If it be a God against whom we contend -"

      Cacama replied: "So I have said from the first. Let them come in peace. If we restrain, we do not thereby lessen our power. Let them come in peace, and if we decide that they should be destroyed, it can be on the way back. By your leave, I will meet them, even now, with consenting words, such as will bring all to a good end."

      Montezuma looked as though it were counsel he would be ready to take. But then he asked: "Can we do that, with a Spaniard's head in the next room?"

      There was certainly a snag there. It was a matter of which he supposed that Cortéz must know, as indeed he did, though no one else in the Spanish camp had been told or guessed, except Marina, who had a vaguely accurate idea of what the truth was likely to be. A messenger had come to Cholula from Vera Cruz, and had seen Cortéz alone, only a few hours after he had given his letter for Escalante to Totonac hands. He had gone back next day, having been confidential with none, in company with others whose orders were not disclosed.

      Marina had seen that Cortéz had had news which had put him into a black mood. She saw that he did not mean to tell what it was, even to her. It was easy to guess of what kind it was likely to be.

      Cortéz had thought: "They are half of them of a mind to go back: they could be turned by as light a wind as a feather needs. Shall I tell them this? I can spare few men to send to relieve those who are pressed. Will it do good if I say: 'There has been treachery at Vera Cruz, by which two of our men were slain. I suppose that the Aztecs have picked their bones. After that, there was desperate fighting, Escalante, on whom I relied, is dead. Vera Cruz may still stand, or it may not.' Would it do good to say that?

      He thought not.

      The head of one of the Spaniards had been sent to Montezuma. He had been a very large man, and those who had killed him were boastful of what they did. The head was huge, swarthy, scowlingly formidable even in death. Montezuma had considered it with less satisfaction for one decease than concern that there should be some hundreds alive of a like kind, who advanced inexorably upon him, with deadly thunders in their control.

      Cacama did not dispute that it was a complication to be deplored. He said: "You can assure them that it was done without orders from you."

      He thought: "They must be used to hearing that now." But he was a young man of exceptional discretion, and it was not spoken aloud. He did not resist adding: "You will allow that it was against the advice I gave."

      "It was," Montezuma said, "by the advice of the gods."

      There was no answer to that .

      Cacama saw how it would be. He said: "I will set out at once."

      Cuitlahua thought: "It is two to one. They will have their way now. But my time will come."

      He went out, saying nothing at all. But, after that, he made some military dispositions of those under his control, on which he was more content.

Chapter 43

Peace?

      Three days had passed since the Spaniards had first gazed down on the far-spread vista of the Mexican plain, rich with palaces and temples, with fair cities, placid islanded lakes, woodlands, cornlands, and fields of flowers.

      They had advanced in a leisurely manner, increasingly astonished at the numbers of the inhabitants, the style of the houses, and the evidences of wealth and culture around them. They were now at Agotzinco, a considerable town on the edge of the lake of Chalco. For the first time they saw houses built on piles, spreading far out into the water, with intervening canals, and many canoes moving upon the lake. They saw also, for the first time, the floating artificial islands with which they would become familiar in later days. Some were covered with flowers; there were others on which vegetables were grown.

      The people through whom they passed had been friendly, curious, generous. Even the Tlascalans, traditional enemies though they were, had had no cause for complaint. There had been much bartering, with difficulties of language to be overcome. Everywhere there had been profusion of given flowers.

      But there had been an unhappy incident during the night. The untimely curiosity of some Aztecs, and the alert watchfulness of the Spanish sentries, had resulted in shots being fired. Some wounds, possibly some fatalities had resulted, which had been exaggerated by report.

      With the dawn, Cortéz had sent apology by Marina for an incident which should not have occurred, yet for which he did not feel that his sentries should be blamed. But it showed how little of real cordiality, of confidence, lay beneath the surface of this contact of alien civilisations.

      When Marina came back, she said: "I have laid the blame on them, as you would have it to be. You will hear no more about that. But there is an envoy from Montezuma here. I have brought him through the lines, but he will speak only with you."

      "Are we to have gifts, and a fresh admonition not to advance?"

      "There are no gifts. It is one man alone. He brings a written letter which I must read."

      So it was. It was a scroll of picture-writing, the interpretation of which was a mystery that would never be mastered by Cortéz, or any Spaniard he led.

      Marina gave it a glance. She said: "The Emperor asks you, of you courtesy, to await an embassy which will meet you here. The Prince of Tezcuco himself is on his way, and will arrive two hours before noon."

      "That is not long to wait. Who is he?"

      "He is a great prince in his own right. He is next to Montezuma himself. He is young, and is liked by all. You would find it hard to quarrel with him." She added: "It is a great honour to you, which all men will understand."

      "He is one to trust?"

      "I should say he is one to trust well... ... But there may be more than I know."

      "Well, say I will meet him here."

      He ordered that a chain of glass crystals should be unpacked, that he might have a gift in readiness of the right kind.

      At the stated hour, he rode out a short way to meet the Prince of Tezcuco, taking with him only Marina, and the four captains, to whom he was now accustomed to give the most confidence that he allowed to any - Alvarado, Sandoval, Velásquez, and Ordaz.

      He rode unarmoured, wearing only his sword, and the girl beside him was evidence of his peaceful mood, but the four cavaliers were in complete steel, bearing lance and shield. The heavy chargers wore frontlets of steel, and silk housings that fell nearly to the ground, making mystery both of man and beast. Even the steel itself was strange and formidable to Aztec eyes.

      "I come in peace," the strange invader seemed to say, by the manner of the approach, "but you see what the alternative might have been."

      But there was no fear in the eyes of the young prince who descended from a closed litter that flashed with jewels and shone with gold.

      The road was hard and dry, but obsequious attendants swept it before his feet, in what was evidently a ritual way.

      Cortéz, descending from his own horse, with Marina beside him, saw a man about ten years younger than himself, spare, but athletic of form, who advanced lightly toward him, and met him with frank, fearless and friendly eyes.

      Great prince though he was, he gave the Aztec greeting appropriate to those of high rank, bending to touch the ground with one hand, and then raising it to his head; but it was done in an easy natural way, and he took embrace which the unbending Cortéz bestowed upon him with the same ease, as though that method of greeting were not alien to all he had been taught or experienced.

      He said: "I have come to welcome you to Mexico in the Emperor's name. If there be anything of necessity or comfort that you require, you have only to let it be known, for he would receive you as honoured guests, both for yourselves and your distant King."

      It was a greeting of greater sincerity, and more adroitly worded than the previous messages of Montezuma had been, and it was followed by a well-chosen present, of a more portable kind than were those which Montezuma had given - three large and lustrous pearls, the value of which would have been agreed by the peoples of every land. But the glass necklace which Cortéz gave in return was of even greater value, in a land where the secret of glass-making was unknown, and Cacama's appreciation was not in doubt.

      Though doing all in a leisurely and most courteous manner, the young prince did not prolong the interview. Having said what the occasion required, he returned to his stately green-plumed litter, and his numerous retinue of Aztec nobles fell in behind it, as it was borne away.

      Cortéz rode back to where his troops were already arranging themselves to resume their march. He may have been more content in mind than at any time since he had left the rising fortifications of Vera Cruz. He thought that the Prince of Tezcuco had spoken with sincerity, and that, whatever might have been intended earlier, the Emperor had now reconciled himself to the audience which had been pressed upon him, and decided to give it a peaceful reception.

      Marina agreed. She could see no other possible explanation of the Prince of Tezcuco's condescension. He would not, she said, have done it for anyone in the Western World.

      Father Olmedo's hopes, though scarcely his expectations, looked the same way.

      "My son," he said, when the evening came, and he had an opportunity of talking to Cortéz apart, "may we not seek now for a path of peace, and avoid violent debate?"

      "Father, so I would. Have I sought strife? Yet I am the servant of God and Spain. Am I not called of God to establish Faith in a heathen land?"

      "So I think that you are. But it is that which should be done in such ways as will be pleased by a God of Love."

      He went off to his own tent, where he lived in a plain way, unsure of the wisdom of what he had said, or of much more which he did not say.

      He was a man without fear, but also without pugnacity. He understood the spirit of his religion far better than did many of the zealous laymen who did violence with devout wills.

      Hearing the confessions of his Commander, he knew him as none other, even Marina, did. He knew that this wild expedition of exploration, conversion and conquest, might have been in far worse, but could not have been in more capable hands. He knew that Cortéz considered that almost any violence or slaughter would be well-pleasing to God if it should result in the baptism even of reluctant ignorant men. Did he himself deny that? Rigid dogma fought with the spirit of Christ in a mental conflict which would never be lost or won, I came not bringing concord, but division. Those were the words of the Prince of Peace. Was there explanation in that?

Chapter 44

The Palace Of Many Flowers

      With the lake of Chalco upon its right, and deep woodlands on its other hand, the lengthened procession continued westward through scenes of beauty and settled peace, until it came to a great causeway which had been built out into the water for several miles, the direct northward road to the palace-city of Montezuma's brother, Iztepalapan, which was only a few miles from Mexico.

      Cortéz reined up, as this huge causeway came in view. At its southern end, though its substance was solid stone, its upper surface was not more than eight yards in breadth. How long would be the train of horses, hand-dragged cannon, more than six thousand soldiers, and further thousands of burden men? What would be its front of defence, if it should be attacked from the lake, which was thronged with boats? Or if, when most of its strength should be moving forward upon the dyke, a hostile force should assault those who were still to come?

      The danger was plain. But he had better expectation of good faith being meant since he had been met by Tezcuco's prince, and hesitation would have been foolish now. The die was cast, though it might yet lie beneath an unlifted cup.

      "Alvarado," he said, "you will go ahead, taking four of the cavaliers. Do not halt till the dyke is passed. Marina, you stay with me."

      He remained at the head of the dyke, somewhat aside, directing a new order of march, so that there would be no long train of women, or baggage of price, which could be assailed from the water, and not swiftly relieved. The cannon were divided into twos, which were widely apart, and drawn by their own crews, who had them shotted, and ready to be swung round at an instant need. The parties of women, and the treasure bearers, were broken up in the same way, with spearmen before and behind, and the mounted captains dispersed among them.

      He did not move forward himself until the whole of the Spaniards, and such baggage as he would have been most troubled to miss, had gone ahead, and only the Tlascalans and the main body of porters remained.

      Alvarado rode on till, in the very midst of the lake, they came to a city of some extent, built entirely on piles, (for the lake, though of wide extent, was not of a great depth). And here his orders not to halt became hard to observe, for Aztec hospitality had provided refreshments for the whole host, which no one would choose to miss.

      He observed the spirit, though not the letter of his orders, by spreading out, as space allowed here, so that there was no halt for those coming behind, until Cortéz himself appeared, by which time, being refreshed in a quick way, the head of the column was moving forward again.

      North of this water-city, the dyke was much wider, so that advance could be made with ease on a broad front, and so the whole army, unmolested except by curious folk in the canoes (who had clambered up, and been a crowding nuisance at times, as curiosity led them to do) they came to the greatest, loveliest place that they had yet seen, the garden city of Iztepalapan.

      They had learnt from the first that the New World was a land of flowers, and of brilliant birds, making a jest of those which Europe could show. Now they saw gardens which had no rivals in the Old World, and aviaries the limits of which were beyond sight, and their contents, brilliant with parrots and pheasants, and varied from hummingbirds to mountain eagles, were beyond the previous imagination of those who gazed.

      Cuitlahua had not changed his belief that the Spaniards should be destroyed, but that did not affect the hospitality with which he received them.

      A ceremonial reception, to which other princes of royal blood had been invited to meet the strangers, and at which lavish presents were bestowed upon them, was followed by a palace banquet for Cortéz and his cavaliers, of a magnificence which led him to ask himself, what had the Old World to compare with this? And - of more immediate concern to him, - what of military power did it imply?

      He was approaching the citadel of a civilisation which he had challenged, if not defied; and he could already see that it was of a more settled and menacing strength than his most anxious doubt had thought it to be.

      Not that any display of force was before him now. The absence of such a show, the apparent indifference with which his armed intrusion appeared to be received, might be variously interpreted; but was not its most probable interpretation that Montezuma was too assured of overwhelming power to be troubled by any threat it could be to him? Or perhaps he might regard it as no more than the peaceful mission which it professed? That might be. But against it was the fact that six thousand Tlascalans were in his train. What were they doing there, in the very citadel of their country's foes? And why did Montezuma accept their presence without remark?

      So he thought, the while he showed a front of smiling courtesy to his Aztec hosts. Among his captains he was quick to laugh, or to respond to another's jest. But Marina, unwinding flowers from her hair, as they prepared for their common couch, and twisting fresh ones to greet the night, saw that he was an anxious man.

      And while the banquet had taken its lavish course, the Emperor of the New World, sitting alone at his evening meal, as his custom was, had shown as serene a front to the waiting nobles who brought in a score of various dishes, that he might eat what he would without the need to order, or have a moment's delay.

      He was as serene to the observation of the jugglers who performed before him at the next hour. He listened with inscrutable eyes when his jester made a remark concerning the Spaniards which could be taken in more ways than one. But when the girls of his zenana, who were on the list for the (five day) week, sent in the names of those who were ready and fit to obey the royal command, they waited through an unprecedented, impatient hour to know which he would have, and were told at last that no one would be required.

      So he lay alone, and slept ill.

Chapter 45

Entrance To Mexico

      In these days, before the great woods were felled, and the rainfall lessened, the two lakes were so nearly one that they would often unite their waters in time of flood. The band of horsemen who led the van arrived at the southern shore of Tezcuco's lake before the last porters had fallen in at the distant rear.

      Yesterday they had been astonished by the length and substance of Chalco's dyke. Now they were doubly amazed at the sight of a causeway in comparison with which it was no more than a trivial thing.

      Straight and far, across a lake which was still half hidden in morning mist, stretched a causeway of concrete and solid stone, of such width that the cavaliers, eight of whom had been riding, two by two, behind their Commander and Dona Marina, now spread out in a single rank.

      The problem of array might be similar to those of the previous morning, but their solution was simpler, for non-combatants and precious baggage could now be protected by a file of spearmen on either side.

      Mile after mile, the great causeway struck its straight way through the lake; sometimes giving a wide view of waters which were deserted except for a passing canoe, or a floating island of flowers; sometimes passing through villages built on piles, the inhabitants of which occupied themselves in abstracting salt from the waters of the lake.

      The leading cavaliers were approaching the centre of the lake, and were less than two miles from the lake-city which was their final goal, when they were confronted by a twelve-foot-high barrier of stone, very solidly built, with a central gateway, and flanking towers. It was an obstacle which they might have found hard to surmount, had they come in a hostile way, but now the gate swung open at their approach, and the wide causeway beyond was bright with the gay apparel of some hundreds of Aztec nobles who had assembled from courtesy, curiosity, or their Emperor's command, to welcome the outlandish invaders.

      Here there was long delay, for each must be introduced separately to Cortéz, and give his country's salute, but he endured the ordeal with a smiling courtesy which did not lessen, and Marina gave him their names in an untiring way, while the two-mile train behind them relaxed, and rested upon the dyke.

      But the last noble, gay with jewels and featherwork as a tropic bird, had touched the ground, and been cordially embraced at last, and as he climbed into the litter which would take him back to his city home, Cortéz gave the signal for the slow march to resume.

      The final obstacle they encountered was a drawbridge, which was lowered to enable them to pass a wide gap in the dyke, and when this was crossed, they saw that the causeway had become a long straight street, continuing for as far as their eyes could follow it, with buildings on either side.

      Most of these were of red stone sometimes elaborately carved, but seldom of more than one or two stories, though there were high temples with summits on which fires never ceased to burn.

      But their eyes were drawn from all other sights when a glittering procession turned into the street and advanced toward them, in the centre of which the Emperor's palanquin was bright with gold, and brilliant with featherwork. Barefooted nobles bore it. Others supported a canopy, shining with silver, and