Page:History of the Spanish Conquest of Yucatan and of the Itzas.pdf/174

Rh they asked me for, were to be cooked, and the stakes on which we were to be spitted, as we found out later.

Canek Helps the Padres to Escape. "As soon as these men had gone, the King said to me, -'You have done well in not giving them your servants, nor is it best for you to go back by their house nor by the road by which you came, but by the opposite road, which is that of Tipu, to which place I will accompany you; since you must know that this invitation is to kill you, in order that the Spaniards may not know the road by which you came. And they say that they are going to follow the Cehaches Indians who guided you, as far as their houses in order to kill them; and so you must go tonight and when they come tomorrow they will find that they have been tricked.' The Queen and her daughters confirmed the truth of this, for, when the time came to embark, they said to us, 'They say that they are not going to kill you in any other way than by cutting you in little pieces,' and they made gestures with one hand over the other, to show that they were going to make mince meat of us and eat us. We started that night, as I have said, and I will tell about it more fully farther on. So that, when they came for me, they found themselves tricked.

"In a rage at seeing their purposes frustrated, the said Cacique Can and his Captain Covoh and the other Cacique Covoh returned to their homes with sixty Indian warriors of their followers.... The said Chakanytzaes Indians came painted red and ready for war to the camp of the General Alonso Garcia de Paredes, saying that I had sent them for the ornaments and the rest of the baggage which I had left in the deserted town of Chuntucí, a land adjoining the nation of the Cehaches, and that they came for the Padre who was taking care of these things.... On their saying to the General that they came for the ornaments, being sent by me, the said General said to them, 'Nor does his servant come with you?' 'Neither does he come,' they replied, 'so he merely sends us in this way.' Then he brought out wine to give them and sent them with the Padre Apostolic Notary to the said town of Chuntucí, which was distant some few leagues from the camp, that he might deliver to them the baggage and sacred vessels.