addressed Sandoval, pompously enumerating
the services and claims of Velasquez, taxing Cortes with rebellion, and
finally demanding that Sandoval should tender his submission to Narvaez.
That officer, greatly exasperated, promptly seized the unlucky priest
and his companions, and, remarking that they might read the obnoxious
proclamation to the general himself in Mexico, ordered them to be bound
like bales of goods upon the backs of sturdy porters and placed under a
guard of twenty Spaniards, and in this way, travelling day and night,
only stopping to obtain relays of carriers, they came within sight of
the capital at the end of the fourth day.

Its inhabitants were already aware of the fresh arrival of white men
upon the coast. Indeed Montezuma had sent for Cortes and told him there
was no longer any obstacle to his leaving the country, as a fleet was
ready for him, and in answer to his astonished inquiries, had shown him
a picture map sent him from the coast, whereon the Spaniards, with their
ships and equipments, were minutely depicted. Cortes pretended to be
vastly pleased by this intelligence, and the tidings were received in
the camp with firing of cannon and other demonstrations of joy, for the
soldiers took the newcomers for a reinforcement from Spain. Not so
Cortes, who guessed from the first that they came from the governor of
Cuba. He told his suspicions to his officers, who in turn informed the
men; but, though alarm succeeded their joy, they resolved to stand by
their leader come what might. When Sandoval's letter acquainting him
with all particulars was brought to Cortes, he instantly sent and
released the bewildered prisoners from their ignominious position, and
furnished them with horses to make their entry into the capital, where,
by treating them with the utmost courtesy and loading them with gifts,
he speedily converted them from enemies into friends, and obtained from
them much important information respecting the designs of Narvaez and
the feelings of his army. He gathered that gold was the great object of
the soldiers, who were evidently willing to co-operate with Cortes if by
so doing they could obtain it. Indeed, they had no particular regard for
their own leader, who was arrogant, and by no means liberal. Profiting
by these important hints, the general sent a conciliatory letter to
Narvaez, beseeching him not to unsettle the natives by a show of
animosity, when it was only by union they could hop