Page:Vol 1 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/507

Rh never left him. He was a power within himself, and he knew it. Thus it was in Mexico now; and for years afterward when Mexico was all America, he was Agamemnon, king of men, the greatest of Greece when Greece was all the world.

Under the present inspiration, he sent Rodrigo Álvarez Chico and a notary to withdraw the proposal he had made Narvaez for an interview, and to demand of him the production of a royal commission, authorizing his presence there, which commission would be respected; otherwise he must cease meddling with the affairs of the country. The followers of Narvaez were to be formally forbidden to obey his orders; and they were to appear before Cortés within a specified time, and learn from him what the interests of the king required of them. Failing in this, he would have them seized and dealt with as rebels against his majesty.

The cool impudence of this demand, coming from the captain of a little band of outlaws hemmed in between hostile forces, gave rise to no small amusement in the enemy's camp. Narvaez chose nevertheless to regard the matter seriously, receiving the message as an insolent defiance. He declared he