subsequent departure of the two
first-mentioned officers for Mexico: then gave him a full description of
the miserable condition of the colony mentioned, the number of the
inhabitants, and their great suffering from want of food; and stated,
that a few days previously they had hung the commandant of the town,
Armenta, because he had refused to grant them permission to return to
Cuba.

Sandoval considered it best to take these men along with him to Cortes,
in order that our approach might not be made known to the colony. One of
Sandoval's soldiers, named Alonso Ortiz, a native of the town San Pedro,
begged that he might be allowed to start an hour before the rest, to
gain a handsome reward, by being the first to announce this joyful news
to our troops. This favour Sandoval readily granted him, and certainly
no news could have been more welcome to us all; for we now fully
believed that all our fatigues and perils were at an end, and we never
thought for a moment that we should have to suffer even greater
hardships than we had hitherto. Alonso de Ortiz was well rewarded for
the haste he had made, for Cortes presented him with a fine gray horse,
which we generally termed the Moor's head; besides this, every one of us
gave him some other little presents. Shortly after, Sandoval himself
arrived, with the other Spaniards, who told Cortes what I have above
mentioned. They also informed him that two miles further on there was a
harbour, in which a vessel was being fitted out, to convey the colonists
to Cuba. The commandant Armenta, they added, had obstinately refused to
allow them to depart; for which reason, and because he had scourged a
Spanish priest, who had caused an insurrection in the town, the
inhabitants rebelled against him, hung him, and appointed a certain
Antonio Nieto commandant in his stead. In the meantime, at the town of
San Gil de Buena Vista, there was nothing but lamentation and grief,
when the Spaniards, who had been sent out in quest of provisions, did
not return in the evening, and every one thought they must either have
been massacred by the Indians or devoured by the wild beasts. One of the
Spaniards who had returned with Sandoval was a married man, and his wife
broke out into loud lamentations at his supposed death. The whole of the
inhabitants went to the church, and a funeral sermon was preached by the
priest Velasquez, and prayers were offered up for the souls of the dead.

Cortes now marched, with