Page:The gilded man (El Dorado) and other pictures of the Spanish occupancy of America.djvu/287

Rh The behavior of the Cholulans was in direct contradiction to the popular view that they regarded the white men as gods. One does not entice gods into traps, and does not try, as was done after the coming of the Spaniards, to enfeeble them gradually by depriving them of food. Both devices were tried against Cortés and his companions.

The intercourse of the Spaniards with the natives was very limited. In the first place, neither could understand the other; and in the second place, Cortés restrained his men so far as he could from going outside of the quarter. Only the young Indian woman Marina, who had been given to the Spaniards at Tabasco, on account of her precious ability to speak both Maya and Nahuatl—who has been the theme of much descriptive writing and verse, and whose career as interpreter and mistress has been invested with a poetical nimbus not appropriate to it—went in and out, diligently using her eyes. A broad affection, which extended from the common soldiers to the commander-in-chief, attached the woman to the Spanish flag. It was said also in Cholula that the wives of those whom Cortés first visited in Tlascala, and who were threatened with death by strangulation, had talked in secret about their tribal kinsmen. Cortés was soon convinced that the people were removing their women and children, not only from the quarter assigned to him, but everywhere. Every one who is acquainted with Indians knows what that proceeding means. It is the incontestable evidence of hostile intentions, and only individuals can in such case, perhaps, escape. Had the Spaniards withdrawn upon the discovery of this