Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 1.djvu/161

Rh obey Your Royal Highnesses, and that in so doing they would be much favoured, and no one would ever molest them. The Cacique answered that he would be glad to do this, and he immediately sent to call all the principal people of the Island, who came and were much pleased with all that the said Captain Fernando Cortes had told the chief cacique of the Island. Thus he ordered them to come back, which they joyfully did, becoming reassured to such an extent that, within a few days, the towns were as full of people as before, and all the Indians went about amongst us with as little fear as if they had already had a long period of intercourse with us.

In the meantime, the Captain learned that there were in the power of certain caciques in Yucatan, some Spaniards who had been made captives as long since as seven years, when, having  Spanish Prisoners in Yucatan been lost in a certain caravel which was wrecked on the reefs of Jamaica, while coming from Tierra Firma, they had escaped in one of the boats of the caravel, and reached that coast. From that time they had been held captives and prisoners by the Indians, Since the said Captain Fernando Cortes had left the Island of Fernandina to seek for these Spaniards, and as he here received information about them, and about the country where they were, it seemed to him that he was