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258 faithful and true. If it should turn out that they were not, then we must carry still further our strong arm and oak heart.

When we reached the boundary walls between the Tlaxcalan and Mexican lands, we halted to wash ourselves at a spring on a hillside and to eat. Refreshed in measure, we again set out and under the escort of many caciques and people who met us at a smaller town, we finally entered Tlaxcala, patiently to await the cure of our wounds. In that town we rested twenty-two days. Then Cortes determined on making punitive excursions into the province of Tepeaca, where the people had slain several of our soldiers on their way to Mexico.

It had become clear that the soldiers of Narvaez were not used to fighting. Those who survived the carnage at the bridge of sorrows and the great battle we fought in the fields, cursed Cortes and his conquest, and could hardly await their return to Cuba. Then, too, they cursed the gold he had given them and which they had for the most part lost. Content to have escaped with their lives, they wanted no more fighting, but rather to go back to their homes. Our captain, thinking he could bend them to his purpose, answered in quiet, kindly talk. But when they saw their complaints had no effect on Cortes, they went before a notary and drew up a formal protest demanding that he abandon war and go at once to Vera