pted by their
numbers, and ordered them to wait for us when they reached the Mexican
territory. While on their march, Chichimecatl remarked that Xicotencatl,
the commander in chief of the Tlascalans was absent; and it was found that
he had secretly gone off from Tezcuco for Tlascala on the preceding night,
in order to take possession of the territory and property of Chichimecatl,
thinking this a good opportunity during the absence of that chief and his
warriors, and being in no apprehension of any opposition, now that
Maxicatzin was dead. Chichimecatl returned immediately to Tezcuco, to
inform Cortes of what had taken place; and our general sent five chiefs of
Tezcuco and two Tlascalan chiefs, to request Xicotencatl to return. He
answered, that if his old father and Maxicatzin had listened to him, they
would not have been now domineered over by Cortes and the Spaniards, and
absolutely refused to go back. On this haughty answer being reported to
Cortes, he immediately sent off an alguazil with four horsemen and five
Tezcucan chiefs, ordering them to seize and hang Xicotencatl wherever they
could find him. Alvarado interceded strongly for his pardon, but
ineffectually; for though Cortes seemed to relent, the party who arrested
Xicotencatl in a town subject to Tezcuco, hung him up by private orders
from Cortes, and some reported that this was done with the approbation of
the elder Xicotencatl, father to the Tlascalan general. This affair
detained us a whole day, and on the next the two divisions of Alvarado and
De Oli marched by the same route, halting for the night at Aculma or
Alcolman, a town belonging to the state of Tezcuco, where a very ruinous
quarrel was near taking place between our two commanders and their
divisions. De Oli had sent some persons before to take quarters for his
troops, and had appropriated every house in the place for his men, marking
them by setting up green boughs on the terraces; so that when Alvarado
arrived with his division, we had not a single house for us to lodge in.
Our soldiers were much irritated at this circumstance, and stood
immediately to their arms to fight with those of De Oli, and the two
commanders even challenged each other; but several of the more prudent of
the officers on both sides interposed, and a reconciliation was effected,
yet Alvarado and De Oli were never afterwards good friends. An express was
sent off immediately to apprize Cortes of this misunderstanding, who wrote