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44 note, misfortune, makes itself heard above the confusion. Battles, skirmishes, and murders filled the lives of Dávila and his men. Their wanderings lay mainly in the region of the province of Bakhalal. (Cogolludo, lib. ii, cap. viii.) Chablé and Villa Real de Chetemal were the places they most often visited. In many cases villages were found to be deserted. All through the discouraging period Dávila was seeking for some means of letting Montejo know the straits he was in. Once more he found Indians whom he believed to be willing to act as messengers, and once again he was tricked. Worse even than this was the unmistakable evidence that the Indians were making elaborate preparations to attack Villa Real. The fact that one of their own chiefs was being held as a hostage for the safe delivery of the letters did not seem to deter them in the least. One fortunate circumstance, however, does appear in this mass of misfortunes: Dávila was forewarned of his danger, for he sent out Francisco Vazquez with ten men in seven canoes to get supplies. Two of the party were killed by Indians; the remainder returned to Villa Real with at least a small amount of supplies.

If Dávila and his men were badly off in Villa Real, Montejo and his party at Chichen Itza were equally if not more precariously situated. The chief causes of their misfortunes were the lack of men, and of the most common necessities, the want of certainty as to the best course to be followed, and the knowledge on the part of the Indians that the number of the Spaniards was daily growing less on account of the ceaseless skirmishes. Food was so scarce that parties had to be formed on purpose to make sallies from the fortifications in search of it. As Cogolludo (p. 86) graphically puts it, “Their dinners now cost them their life-blood.”

Although, as we have already seen, centralized power was at an end long since in the peninsula, a revival of the old-time feeling of unity is to be seen in the determination the Mayas had to get rid of the Spaniards. Cogolludo (p. 87) says, “For this purpose almost all the people of that land had made an agreement, so that the multitude [of Indians] was very great. The Indians who led the attack were of a vigorous and proud