Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 1.djvu/237

Rh as its natives were friends of Montezuma's, their sovereign. They said that we might there learn his pleasure, whether it was that I should go to his country, and that some of them would go to speak with him, and tell him what I had told them and return with his answer.

Although they knew that I had there some of his messengers, who had come to speak with me, I told them that I would go, and would leave on a certain day which I made known to them. When it became known to the Tascaltecas what they and I had agreed upon, and how I consented to go with them to that city, the rulers came to me, greatly afflicted, and told me that I must not go on any account, because it had been plotted to kill me and my men in that city. For this purpose, they said, Montezuma had sent fifty thousand men from his country (some part of which joins with that city), whom they kept in garrison, two leagues from the city, and that they had blocked up the customary high road, and had prepared a new one with many pits, in which sharp stakes and wood were placed, covered over in such a manner that the horses would fall, and be lamed; many streets were barricaded, and quantities of stones were collected on the housetops, so that, when we entered the city they might attack us with safety, and accomplish their purpose. They told me, that, if I wanted to confirm all they