Page:The Mastering of Mexico.djvu/265

Rh truth they are the ones who rob and render ill service to our king. All this you must see with your own eyes, honest gentlemen as you are, and that we are bound to fight for the honor of our king and our own property. We lately left Mexico with confidence in God and in another, and now we bid defiance to injustice."

One and all we cried out to him that he might feel sure, we would, God aiding us, conquer or die. This rally of ours greatly rejoiced Cortes and he said that because he had confidence in us he had made the march from Mexico, and not regret but wealth and honor should be the reward of our courage. He once more begged us to remember that in war and battle, prudence and knowledge accomplish more than utmost daring, and he knew so well our great courage, how every man of us strove to be first to dash into the enemy's ranks, that he begged us to be ordered in companies. The enemy's guns were the first object for us to capture. For this he chose sixty of our youngest men, of which number I was one, and put Pizarro, a daring young man, in command—in those days neither Pizarro nor Peru were known to fame. The order was that as soon as we had captured the cannon we were to storm the quarters of Narvaez on the top of a lofty temple. To seize Narvaez himself was the duty of Sandoval and sixty men with him, Cortes promising to give