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Rh have them immediately released, set on horseback like true Spanish cavaliers, and brought to the city, not in the guise of enemies, but in that of welcome friends. He kindly apologized for the rudeness of his young captain, smoothed over his quarrel with Narvaez and treated the envoys with such courtesy that the friendship became real and lasting. His efforts to gain the confidence of Narvaez were not so successful; the latter boasted loudly that he would arrest Cortez and put Montezuma again at the head of his people.

News of this threat came to Cortez at a time when one hundred and twenty of his best men were away in the South planting the colony he had planned in more peaceful days; he wrote to them to meet him at Cholula. Then, with seventy soldiers and unencumbered with his cannon, he started for the coast. There were foes without and foes within the little garrison he left behind him, but his greatest fear seemed to be about Montezuma. What course would he take when left to himself? Cortez told the chief he was going to punish a rebel against the king of Spain, and exacted a solemn promise that during his absence the Aztecs should be as obedient to Alvarado, whom he left in command, as they had been to himself. Montezuma's friendly spirit showed itself by an offer of five thousand Aztec soldiers; these were declined with thanks. With the little force at his disposal, Cortez made a rapid march over the mountains to Cholula, where he found friends waiting impatiently to join him. The captain of this colonizing expedition, Velasquez de Leon, was a relative of the Cuban governor. Narvaez had made a great effort to break the friendship between him and Cortez, and his loyalty in such circumstances gave new courage to the anxious general.