iving them all his treasures of gold to melt down and part among
themselves. As I say, it sounds all like a fairy tale, but it happened
in this very month of November 1519.

But Cortez had been too prosperous not to meet with a mishap. Every
great man must be tried by trouble; and so was Cortez. News came to him
that a fresh army of Spaniards had landed, as he thought at first, to
help him. They had nine hundred men, eighty of whom were horse soldiers,
eighty musqueteers, one hundred and fifty cross-bow men, a good train of
heavy guns, ammunition, &c. What was Cortez's disgust when he found that
the treacherous Governor of Cuba had sent them, not to help him, but to
take him prisoner as a rebel? It was a villainous business got up out of
envy of Cortez's success, and covetousness of his booty. But in the
Spanish colonies in those days, so far from home, there was very little
law; and the governors and adventurers were always quarrelling and
fighting with each other.

What did Cortez do? made up his mind as usual to do the desperate thing,
and marched against Narvaez with only seventy men, no guns, and hardly
any muskets--seventy against nine hundred. It was fearful odds; but he
was forced to leave the rest to keep Mexico down. And he armed his men
with very long lances, tipped at both ends with copper--for he had no
iron; with them he hoped to face Narvaez's cavalry.

And he did it. Happily on his road he met an old friend with one hundred
and twenty soldiers, who had been sent off to form a colony on the coast.
They were as true as steel to him. And with that one hundred and ninety
he surprised and defeated by night Narvaez's splendid little army. And
what is more, after beating them, made such friends with them, that he
engaged them all next morning to march with him wherever he wanted. The
man was like a spider--whoever fell into his net, friend or foe, never
came out again till he had sucked him dry.

Now he hurried back to Mexico, and terribly good reason he had; for
Alvarado whom he had left in garrison had quarrelled with the Mexicans,
and set upon them at one of their idol feasts, and massacred great
numbers of their leading men. It was a bloody black business, and
bitterly the Spaniards paid for it. Cortez when he heard it actually
lost his temper for once, and called his lieutenant-general a madman and
a traitor; but he could not afford to cashier him, for after all he was
the best and braves