s he saw them come painted red and in warlike
array and had entered impudently into the camp? Spare me from such an
act, for in this case (although I do not understand military laws)
reason dictates that he ought to have imprisoned them and disarmed them
until he had satisfied himself whether what they said was true, taking
two of them as guides, and sending an officer with the necessary people
behind them, to investigate the truth of what had happened, and
according to the result, to act in the following way,--if it was true
that I sent them without a letter or sure token, he should have laid
the blame on me and should have honored the prisoners by accompanying
them with all his people to take possession of their lands in the name
of the King our Lord, since then he would know that this was the sign
which I gave him when I took my leave of him, that the said Ytzaes
wished to become Christians and accepted the friendship of the
Spaniards; and if it was not true, he should then have made use of
severity and the military laws. For, if the story that I sent them was
false, as it was, and if he had used military severity with their three
principal chiefs, who were the Cacique Covoh and the Cacique Can and
the Captain Covoh, all of whom the King of Peten, in his answer to the
message, told me were his enemies, and said that if the Governor
executed them, he (the King) would deliver over all the _Petens_, then
all the nations of the Ytzaes would have been conquered and delivered
to the King our Lord, and at this moment they would all have been
Christians without the said victory costing a shot of powder.... And he
ought not to have allowed them to go behind the said Padre, my
companion, some leagues away, with the risk that the said heathen might
kill the priest without the merit of being in the service of God; and
with the risk of their stealing and misusing the sacred vessels."

The Chakan Itzas are Foiled by God. "But God, who looks after his
affairs, arranged that on the said Chakanytzaes coming near the
ornaments, they, pretending a need, told the Padre to await them there,
and they went into the woods and went to their town without having
accomplished any of the many purposes for which they came; the first,
to see if they had got ahead of me and my companions (understanding
that we had passed through their territories by night) so as to carry
out their intention of killing us; the second, to see if they could
catch th