e state of the case, and was convinced that no blame
could be attached to him. They subsequently became reconciled, and
Cortes strove, by every means in his power, to regain Sandoval's
friendship.

CHAPTER CXLIII.

_How we marked our slaves at Tezcuco with a red-hot iron, and
received intelligence that a vessel had run into Vera Cruz._

As Sandoval had brought a great many slaves with him, and there were
besides numbers we had taken on previous occasions, Cortes resolved they
should be marked with a red-hot iron. It was, therefore, announced that
each person was to bring his slaves to a certain house for that purpose.
Our men accordingly came with their slaves, and imagined they would
merely have to pay the fifth of their value to the emperor, and that
then they would be entirely their own without any further deduction.

If, however, Cortes and others had acted meanly towards us in Tepeaca,
the meanness they now displayed was still greater. First, the emperor's
fifths were deducted; then a second fifth was set apart for Cortes, and
other portions for our officers; and, during the night preceding the
last division, all the finest females had disappeared. Cortes had
faithfully promised the men that all the slaves should be sold by public
auction, but this was not done, for the officers of the crown acted in
this matter just as they pleased. This was a good hint for us in future;
so that afterwards, when we had captured any beautiful Indian females,
we concealed them, and gave out that they had escaped, as soon as it
came to marking day; or if any one of us stood in favor with Cortes, he
got them secretly marked during the night-time, and paid a fifth of
their value to him. In a short time we possessed great numbers of such
slaves; and if we were questioned about them, we merely said they were
Naborias[11] of the neighbouring tribes near Tlascalla, who had come to
sue for peace. I must also observe that two months had scarcely elapsed
before some of our female slaves knew of every soldier in the troop
whether he behaved well to his Naborias or not; whenever, therefore,
these females were put up to auction, and they found they had been
bought by a man who bore a bad name in this way, they disappeared, and
were nowhere to be found. If they did not recapture them it was all the
same; they were still debited to the buyer in the royal accounts. Our
soldiers fared no better in the division of gold; for if any