Page:Vol 1 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/207

Rh Next morning Alvarado and Francisco de Lugo, each with one hundred men, were sent by different ways to reconnoitre and forage, with orders to return before dark. Melchor, on being called to accompany one of them, was missing. Presently his clothes were discovered hanging on a tree, indicating that he had gone over to the enemy. Lugo had advanced not more than a league when, near a town called Centla, he encountered a large body of warriors, who attacked him fiercely and drove him back toward the camp. Alvarado had meanwhile been turned by an estuary from his course and in the direction of Lugo. Hearing the noise of battle he hastens to the assistance of Lugo, only to be likewise driven back by the ever increasing hosts, and not until Cortés came to the rescue with two guns did the enemy retire. The result, according to Bernal Diaz, was two of Lugo's men killed and eleven wounded, while fifteen Indians fell and three were captured.

Nor did the matter rest here. The captives told Cortés that Tabasco, concerned at the arrival of so large a fleet which augured hostile occupation, had aroused the province, the assembled chiefs being also urged by Melchor to manfully expel the invaders, as