Page:The Mastering of Mexico.djvu/143

Rh Next morning we set out for Tlaxcala, our scouts marching always in advance, our muskets loaded, the matches lighted, our horsemen in close order, in short, ready for action at a moment's notice. Day and night we were on guard. At the small town of Xalacingo we heard that the whole of Tlaxcala was up in arms—thinking that like the Mexicans we came to plunder. We at once despatched two chiefs of Cempoala to say we hoped they would receive us as friends, for we had come as such. We sent also a fluffy, red Flemish hat and a letter. We knew they could not read the letter, but we thought that when they saw the paper unlike their own they would understand it bore a message. The Tlaxcalans, however, seized and threw into prison our messengers and we waited in vain for their return.

Commending ourselves to God, on the third day we set out for Tlaxcala, and then met our two men, who had got out of their prison by the aid of friends. They were stricken with terror at what they had seen and heard. "Now we are going to kill those you call teules," the Tlaxcalans had said to them. "You shall see whether they are as valiant as you say. And we shall eat their flesh, and your flesh, too." Say what our delegates might in