Page:Vol 1 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/297

Rh difference between them consists chiefly in setting off the position of one against the native strength of the other, the manners and pusillanimity of the one against the fate-defying chivalry of the other-had each his active workers not only in Spain, but in America, those of Velazquez being some of them in the very camp of Cortés. Since the royal grant of superior powers to Velazquez, this faction has lifted its head. And now its brain works.

The messengers for Spain had scarcely left the port before these malcontents form a plot, this time not with the sole desire to return to a more comfortable and secure life, but with a view to advise Velazquez of the treasure ship so close at hand. Amongst them are to be found the priest Juan Diaz; Juan Escudero, the alguacil of Baracoa, who beguiled and surrendered Cortés into the hands of the authorities; Diego Cermeño and Gonzalo de Umbría, pilots; Bernardino de Coria, and Alonso Peñate, beside several leading men who merely countenanced the plot. They have already secured a small vessel with the necessary supplies, and the night of embarkment is at hand, when Coria repents and betrays his companions.

Cortés is profoundly moved. It is not so much the hot indignation that stirs his breast against the traitors as the light from afar that seems to float in upon his mind like an inspiration, showing him more vividly than he had ever seen it before, his situation. So lately a lax and frivolous youth, apparently of inept nature, wrought to stiffer consistency by some years of New World kneading, by a stroke of the

1 The names vary somewhat in different authorities, Bernal Diaz including instead of Peñate, a number of the Gibraltar sailors known as Peñates, who were lashed at Cozumel for theft. The plot was hatched 'Desde à quatro dias que partieron nuestros Procuradores.' ''Hist. Verdad''., 39. Cortés mentions only four 'determinado de tomar un bergantin. . . . y matar al maestre dél, y irse á la isla Fernandina.' Cartas, 53-4. Gomara assumes them to be the same who last revolted on setting out for Tizapantzinco. ''Hist. Mex''., 64. 'Pusieron. . . . por obra de hurtar un navío pequeño, é salir á robar lo que llevaban para el rey.' Tapia, Relacion, in Icazbalceta, Col. Doc., ii. 563. Peter Martyr jumbles the names, dec. v. cap. i.