CHAPTER LXX.

_How the captain Xicotencatl assembled 20,000 chosen warriors to

make an attack upon us in our camp, and what happened upon this._

The caziques, Maxixcatzin and the elder Xicotencatl, with all the chief

personages of the principal town of Tlascalla, had now for the fourth

time issued orders to their captain-general not to approach our camp,

and commanded the other officers not to accompany him unless he called

upon us to make peace. Xicotencatl lay in our immediate neighbourhood,

and was terribly exasperated at this; yet he determined to send us forty

Indians with provisions, consisting in fowls, bread, and fruits.[26]

This present was also accompanied by four disgusting old Indian females

and a quantity of copal and parrot feathers.

We, of course, concluded that these people came with peaceable

intentions. They perfumed Cortes when they were brought into his

presence, and thus addressed him, without observing the courtesies

customary among them: "These presents are sent you by the general

Xicotencatl, that you may eat, in case you are teules, as the people of

Sempoalla have assured us. If you require a sacrifice with them, kill

these four women, and devour their flesh and their hearts. As we do not

know what your wish is on this head we have not sacrificed them for you.

But if you are human beings, be contented with the fruit and the fowls;

and if you are kind-hearted teules, take the copal and the parrot

feathers as an offering."

Cortes answered, by means of our interpreters, that he was desirous of

making peace, not war, which he had already made known to them. He was

come into their country to beg of them, in the name of our Lord Jesus

Christ, and of our great emperor Don Carlos, to abstain from human

sacrifices. We were all human beings made of flesh and bone like

themselves, and not teules, but Christians. We killed no one, excepting

when we were attacked, then, indeed, we destroyed our enemies, whether

it happened to be day or night. He was very thankful for the provisions,

but now they should likewise have the good sense to send us messengers

of peace.

We readily perceived that these people whom Xicotencatl had despatched

to us were spies, who came to gain the necessary information respecting

the accesses to our camp, and the number of our troops, of the horses

and the cannon, and everything else. They remained with us the whole day

and following night. From time to time some returned to Xicotencatl, and

others again arrived in their stead. All this greatly surprised our

friends of Sempoalla, as it was not customary with them to stay night

and day in an enemy's camp without some particular design. This

accordingly aroused their suspicions, which were further confirmed by

some hints which fell from two old men of Zumpanzingo that Xicotencatl

stood ready with a large army to fall upon us unawares. At first they

had laughed at the idea, thinking it a mere piece of bragging, and had,

therefore, not mentioned it to Cortes. Dona Marina, to whom they had

made this known, immediately brought the intelligence to our general,

who, to fathom this matter more deeply, ordered two of the Tlascallans,

who appeared to be honest fellows, to be seized, when they confessed

that Xicotencatl had sent them as spies into our camp. These men were

then liberated, and several others seized, who all gave the same answer,

adding, that their commander Xicotencatl was merely waiting their

information to fall upon us the following night with the whole of his

troops.

After Cortes had convinced himself of the true state of affairs, he

commanded us to be upon our guard, and to hold ourselves ready for

action; he also imprisoned seventeen other of the spies, some of whom he

ordered to have their thumbs cut off, others the whole hand, and to be

sent back in that condition to Xicotencatl, with the information, "That

this was his mode of punishing such messengers. He might now come

whenever he liked in the night or by daytime, we would wait for him here

two whole days: if we had not been peaceably inclined, we should

ourselves have attacked and annihilated both his army and himself long

before this: it was now, however, high time he should desist from his

folly, and send us a sincere token of peace."

The unfortunate beings who had thus been dismembered, arrived in

Xicotencatl's head-quarters just as he was on the point of marching off

with his whole army to fall upon us in the dark. When he saw his spies

before him in that condition, and learnt why they had been so treated,

his pride and conceit fell at once. To this was added, that a certain

chief, with whom he had quarrelled on account of the late battles, had

left the camp with the men under his command.

[26] During this war the Tlascallans frequently sent provisions to

Cortes' troops. This they did partly out of pride, that it might not be

said they conquered the Spaniards by famine; partly that the latter

might not become meagre in body, but that their flesh might taste

savoury when they sacrificed them to their gods, so sure were these

brave warriors of victory! (p. 165.)