denas I shall have occasion to mention on some future
occasion, for he did Cortes considerable injury in Spain during the
subsequent complaints which were laid before the emperor against him.

CHAPTER CVI.

_Of the high words which arose between Velasquez de Leon and our
treasurer Gonzalo Mexia on account of the gold which was missing
from the heap, and how Cortes put an end to that dispute._

Since gold, generally speaking, is the great desire of man, and that the
more he possesses of it the more avaricious he grows, it also happened
here that many pieces of gold were missing from the heaps, which I have
mentioned above; and as one of our officers named Leon had ordered
Motecusuma's goldsmiths to make him heavy gold chains and other
ornaments, the royal treasurer Gonzalo Mexia suspected something wrong,
and secretly observed to him that the emperor's fifths had not been
deducted from several of the bars he had sent to be smelted. Leon, who
stood in high favour with Cortes, answered, that it was not his
intention to return anything. The gold he possessed he had not taken
himself, but had received all from Cortes before it had ever been
smelted.

The royal treasurer, however, was not to be silenced by this, but
affirmed, that, besides the gold Cortes had secretly taken away, and of
which he had deprived his companions in arms, there was a good deal
elsewhere from which the royal fifths had not been deducted, and that,
in his capacity of royal treasurer, he could not suffer the emperor's
interest to be thus prejudiced.

This, consequently, led to high words between both parties, so that they
drew swords, and would certainly have killed each other if we had not
instantly parted them; for both were high-spirited men and excellent
swordsmen, and each had already wounded his antagonist.

As soon as Cortes was informed of this affair, he ordered both to be
arrested and heavily chained. As, however, he always had been heart in
hand with Leon, many were of opinion that all this was a mere blind to
make us believe that he preferred justice to friendship; besides which
it was whispered that he secretly visited him during his arrest, and
assured him that he should not be confined beyond a couple of days, when
he and Mexia would again be set at liberty. But all this did not go to
quiet our suspicions, and now Mexia, in his turn, was reproached for not
having fulfilled the duties of royal treasurer, and he w