Page:The Mastering of Mexico.djvu/73

Rh in-law, the alcalde of Trinidad, had not only confirmed Cortes in his government of the fleet, but had helped him to get away, he roared with rage, they said, declaring Cortes had run off with the whole squadron, and that his own two favorites had lent the captain every possible aid. Nor did he stop here. He despatched letters to his sub-governor of Havana, and to his friends there, praying them by all the friendship they bore him not to permit the fleet to get away, and to send Cortes under guard to Santiago.

As soon as the bearer of these despatches arrived, Cortes learned their tenor, and through the bearer himself—for a friar of the Order of Mercy, who was much in the company of Velasquez, forwarded by this same messenger a letter to a friar who was in the fleet. By this means Cortes learned the whole affair, and he at once went to the sub-governor and won him to his side—this was easily done because the sub-governor was put out with Velasquez for not giving him a better grant of Indians—so that he sent back the messenger with the word that he dared not seize Cortes, for he was too beloved by his soldiers, and he feared, if he should, they would sack the town and carry off his people. Cortes himself wrote to Velasquez in the smooth terms he knew so well how to use, assuring him that he did nothing against the governor's interests, that he was his