Page:The Mastering of Mexico.djvu/108

78 after they had chosen a treasurer he showed his real intentions and said with a heavy frown on his brow, "You see, gentlemen, how hard our comrades fare from want of food. To this moment, because the amount of gold was but a trifle, I overlooked their bartering that they might find something to eat. You have wished that the order be issued that there be no more bartering for gold. We have next to see what we shall get to eat."

Now it happened that one fine morning we woke up to find those Indians, who had stayed near us and had brought gold for barter, had secretly left. Later we learned that Montezuma had sent orders forbidding all conversation with Cortes and his company. For he was much attached to his idol-gods, Tezcatlipoca, god of hell, and Huitzilopochtli, god of war, to whom he every day sacrificed young children that the gods might make clear to him what he should do about us. And now they had told him not to listen to Cortes, nor to the message about setting up a cross and image of Our Lady. His plan was, if we would not sail away, to make us prisoners and use some of us to educate children and others for sacrifice.

We now had the reason the Indians left our camp secretly, and expecting daily that they would make war on us, we kept close watch. In these days I with another soldier was stationed at a lookout on the