men, besides horses and the necessary provisions. The command of these
he intrusted to an officer named Alonso Alvarez Pinedo, who at present
was lying at a distance of about 280 miles from this place, in the river
Panuco, where he intended to found a colony. For the rest, added the
prisoners, they had merely obeyed the commands of that officer, and were
therefore not answerable for anything they had done. Cortes was very
much pleased with these fellows, on account of the disclosure they had
made; he tried to gain them over to his interest, and inquired of them,
if it were possible to capture the vessel? Guillan de la Loa, the most
distinguished of the prisoners, thought it might be done, and he, with
his comrades, would hail the ship's shallop on shore. This they
accordingly tried, but, notwithstanding all their shouting and signals,
no one moved from the vessel. No doubt we must have been observed by
them, for the captain knew all about us, and he had particularly
cautioned his men to be upon their guard, not to fall into the hands of
Cortes. We had now, therefore, no other course left than to try to
entice the shallop on shore by some other stratagem. For this purpose
Cortes desired the prisoners to take off their clothes, and four of our
men to put them on, who were to remain behind. The rest of us marched
back along the road we had come, and halted behind a mountain, as soon
as we were out of sight of the vessel. Here we remained until midnight,
when all was dark around; we then, without the least noise, put
ourselves in motion, and made for the landing-place, in the
neighbourhood of which we concealed ourselves, so as to be invisible to
any one excepting our four disguised soldiers.

As soon as daylight had broken forth, the latter made signals to the
vessel with their cloaks and hats; upon which the shallop put off with
six sailors, two of whom had water-bottles in their hands, and
immediately stepped on shore. We watched until the four others should
have done the same. Our four disguised men were in the meantime washing
their hands, and doing everything else to hide their faces. Those in the
shallop cried out, "What the deuce are you about there? why don't you
come on board?" One of our men then answered, "Come on shore for a few
minutes, and see what the place is like!" They found, however, the voice
to be that of a stranger, and put off with the shallop to the vessel
again, notwithstanding all the signals our