tening to the conversation of Salvatierra, whom they heard
observing to some of his companions, how luckily they had come at the
present moment to deprive the traitor Cortes of the 700,000 crowns which
he had obtained from Montezuma. When it was dark, our disguised soldiers
got privately out of the house, and took away Salvatierras horse with the
saddle and bridle, and meeting another horse by the way, which happened
to be lame, they brought it along with them. Cortes laughed heartily at
this exploit; and we learned afterwards that Salvatierra gave much
amusement to the soldiers of Narvaez, by his absurd behaviour on
discovering the trick which had been played upon him.

It was now resolved in a general consultation of our little army, to send
a letter in all our names to Narvaez, by the hands of Father Olmedo, of
which the following is the purport: "We had rejoiced on hearing of the
arrival of so noble a person with so fine an army, by which we expected
great advantages to have been derived to our holy religion and to the
service of our sovereign; but on the contrary he had reviled us as
traitors, and had occasioned the whole country to revolt. Our general had
already offered to resign to him whatever provinces or territories he
might be inclined to occupy, but nothing would serve him except treating
our general and us as rebels, who had proved ourselves by our actions
faithful subjects to the emperor. If he came by the authority of a
commission from his majesty, we demanded to see the original within three
days, for which purpose we had advanced to this place, and were ready to
obey it in all humility and reverence: but, if he had no such authority,
we required him to return immediately to Cuba, and not to make any attempt
to throw the country which we had conquered into confusion; as otherwise
we should deem it our bounden duty to send him as a prisoner to his
majesty, to be dealt with according to his royal pleasure. We declared
that he was answerable for all the lamentable consequences which might
follow from his unlawful conduct; and that we had sent this letter by its
present conveyance, since no royal notary could undertake to deliver our
remonstrance in due form, after the violence which he had committed
against his majesties oydor Vasquez, a treasonable act, the perpetrator of
which our general was bound to apprehend and bring to justice, and for
which we now cited him to appear and answer for his conduct." This