Page:The Mastering of Mexico.djvu/77

Rh that slave! Why is he coming here to talk to my husband?"—and turning to Aguilar she added, "Mind your own business, and don't you trouble yourself about us."

After a considerable delay, we despairing of finding him, and he of ever reaching us, Aguilar finally came to our camp. Some soldiers, returning one day from chasing musk swine, told Cortes that a canoe was approaching. Our captain at once sent Andres de Tapia with a couple of men to find what the news might be, for never before had a canoe come fearlessly towards us. When Tapia saw the seven who landed were Indians, and called to them that they need have no fear, in broken Spanish one cried, "Dios y Santa Maria de Sevilla!" and rushed to Tapia and embraced him. A soldier in Tapia's company promptly ran to Cortes with news that a Spaniard had returned. So much did his countenance look like that of an Indian that, as the seven men passed, many of our men kept asking, "Which is the Spaniard?" Added to the fact that his complexion was naturally brown, he was shorn like an Indian slave. He carried a paddle across his shoulder and had a tattered stocking on one leg and another at his waist, while a loin cloth and ragged cloak covered his nakedness. An old and worn "Book of Hours" he carried folded in a corner of his cloak.

As the seven drew near Cortes, he like the rest of