e mountain road and its dangers do not appal us--we who have
sailed two thousand leagues of troubled ocean to arrive here--and we
cannot return to our great sovereign without having personally greeted
yours." Again the Spaniards waited the messengers' return, weary of the
wind- and sand-swept plains of Vera Cruz; assailed by the _calenturas_
ever encountered upon the American coasts, the bilious malarial
disorders which Nature has made the scourge of the tropics, and which
the science of modern man has only just begun to investigate. Again the
messengers--within ten days--returned. Stripped of its diplomatic
covering of ceremony and further presents, the Aztec Emperor's reply
may be condensed as "Get thee hence!" And, as if to bear out some royal
mandate, the natives disappeared from the vicinity, the supplies were
cut off, leaving the Spaniards halting upon this debatable ground, in
chagrin and indecision.

But not for long. The stern design of the Spaniards had been forced,
and was growing. "I vowed to your Royal Highness that I would have
Montezuma prisoner, or dead, or subject to your Majesty," wrote Cortes
to Carlos V. of Spain, from Vera Cruz; and "Think you we were such
Spaniards as to lie there idly?" wrote Bernal Diaz, the soldier-penman,
afterwards. Yet there was some disaffection in the camp, a portion of
the men, wearied of inaction and fearful of dangers, desiring to return
to Cuba. Here Cortes's diplomacy came to the rescue. "On board, all of
you!" he exclaimed. "Back to Cuba and its Governor, and see what
happens!" The threat and sneer had the effect he expected. Scarcely a
man would return, but on the contrary they clamoured for the
establishment of a colony and for a march on Montezuma and his capital,
whilst the few who remained disaffected were clapped in irons, among
them the _hidalgo_ Velasquez, a relative of the Governor of Cuba.

And now it was that the key to the situation was put into the hands of
Cortes. An embassy from a semi-civilised, powerful nation to the north,
upon the gulf-shores--the Totonacs, of Cempoalla, as they announced
themselves--suddenly arrived in the colony of the Christians. They
brought an invitation from their chief for the Spaniards to visit him,
with the information--and here was the circumstance which should make
conquest possible--that the Totonacs were weary of the Aztec yoke, and
yearned for independence. "Ha!" thought Cortes and his _hidalgo_
associates, "they are