he
was locked up in a similar cage to that which the factor inhabited.

Upon this, couriers were sent to Guatimala, to inform Alvarado of the
fall of the factor and veedor. As the province he was then staying in
was not very distant from Truxillo, the confederates also conveyed to
him their letters to Cortes, containing an account as to how the whole
affair had been managed, and that it was necessary for him to repair to
Mexico in all haste. With these letters Alvarado was requested to set
off in person for Truxillo, and when there he was to urge Cortes to
leave without any further delay. The first thing which Estrada did was
to restore Juana de Mansilla to honour, whom, it will be remembered, the
factor had whipped for a witch through the streets of Mexico. The
following was the method which Estrada adopted to honour this injured
woman; the whole of the cavaliers were ordered to mount their horses, he
himself placing Juana Mansilla on his saddle behind him, and in this
way, at the head of the cavalcade, he paraded every street of the city.
"This woman," he said, "had behaved like the Roman matrons of old,
wherefore the insult which had been offered to her person by the factor,
should now be made to exalt her in the estimation of all honest men."
And, indeed, she could not be too highly honoured for the praiseworthy
conduct she had pursued, and ever after she was addressed as Dona Juana
de Mansilla. The factor could not induce her to form a second marriage,
and, notwithstanding all his persecution, she had steadfastly maintained
that her husband and all of us were still alive.

CHAPTER CLXXXIX.

_How the treasurer, with several other cavaliers, requested the
Franciscan monks to despatch father Diego de Altamirano, a relation
of Cortes, to Truxillo, to desire our general to hasten his
departure for Mexico._

The treasurer and other cavaliers of Cortes' party soon saw how
necessary it was that our general should lose no time in repairing to
New Spain, for a strong party was already forming against him, which
might become the more formidable, as no reliance was to be placed on
Albornoz. This man had, from the very commencement, greatly disapproved
of the imprisonment of the factor and veedor: his principal reason for
which was, that he feared Cortes might have received intelligence of the
infamous manner in which he had calumniated him in secret letters to the
emperor. Cortes' party, therefore,