Page:The Mastering of Mexico.djvu/165

Rh he should feel obliged to punish them; and now, as he had already said, he purposed to take his departure to-morrow for Mexico, and he should require warriors and porters of theirs to join his army. The caciques answered that their men would be ready, and they took their leave to make the necessary preparations, very well contented in mind, for there seemed to them no doubt of the success of their plans. They had made sacrifices to their god of war and he had promised them victory.

Cortes now made every effort to find what their plans were, and commissioned Donna Marina to present still other chalchihuite stones to the two papas. She accordingly went and spoke to the priests and, adding also the presents, led them to our quarters, where Cortes asked them to tell the truth, which as papas and caciques they were twice bound to do. They then averred that the truth was their sovereign, Montezuma, could not make up his mind whether he should permit us to march to his city or not, and he changed his mind several times a day—at one time ordering them to pay us the greatest reverence and guide us to Mexico, at another time sending word that his gods, Tezcatlipoca and Huitzilopochtli, in whose advice he confided, counselled him to imprison or kill us in Cholula. To this end he had the very day before sent twenty thousand men, one half of whom were now secreted in the town and the