Page:Young Folks History Of Mexico.pdf/194

 188 Returning the next day the captain of the Indians invited the Spaniards on shore, and leading them into an ambuscade wounded several of them. The Spaniards, however, gave them a taste of their sharp swords and killed fifteen. Meanwhile, during the fight, a vagabond priest whom they had brought along with them sacked a temple, and brought off several wooden chests which contained stone idols, various vessels, three diadems, and some images of birds and fishes in alloyed gold. This was their only consolation during the entire trip, for after that they had nothing but fighting. They wondered at the great stone buildings, as the first of the kind they had seen in America, and at the fierceness of the inhabitants of Yucatan, who resembled in this respect the West Indian Caribs. Sailing southward, skirting the western coast of Yucatan, they landed at a place called Campeche, where they saw more temples of stone, filled with hideous idols in the shape of serpents. The natives assembled in great numbers, and their chief asked of them, by signs, if they came from the East, probably having in mind the legend of the "Feathered Serpent." Then their priests, dressed in robes of white cotton, their long hair clotted with blood, rushed out of a temple, kindled a fire of grass and faggots, and fumigating the Spaniards with the incense of the native gums, indicated by signs that if they were not well off their shores before the fire had gone out, their warriors would attack and destroy them.

Well had it been for Cordova and his soldiers had they taken this advice and returned to Cuba. Escaping from this place unharmed they were driven by lack of water to go on shore below Campeche. They landed at an Indian town called Champotan, where, while they were sinking wells, they were attacked by Indian warriors, armed with shields and two-handed swords, their bodies protected by