ll upon us the following night with the whole of his
troops.

After Cortes had convinced himself of the true state of affairs, he
commanded us to be upon our guard, and to hold ourselves ready for
action; he also imprisoned seventeen other of the spies, some of whom he
ordered to have their thumbs cut off, others the whole hand, and to be
sent back in that condition to Xicotencatl, with the information, "That
this was his mode of punishing such messengers. He might now come
whenever he liked in the night or by daytime, we would wait for him here
two whole days: if we had not been peaceably inclined, we should
ourselves have attacked and annihilated both his army and himself long
before this: it was now, however, high time he should desist from his
folly, and send us a sincere token of peace."

The unfortunate beings who had thus been dismembered, arrived in
Xicotencatl's head-quarters just as he was on the point of marching off
with his whole army to fall upon us in the dark. When he saw his spies
before him in that condition, and learnt why they had been so treated,
his pride and conceit fell at once. To this was added, that a certain
chief, with whom he had quarrelled on account of the late battles, had
left the camp with the men under his command.

[26] During this war the Tlascallans frequently sent provisions to
Cortes' troops. This they did partly out of pride, that it might not be
said they conquered the Spaniards by famine; partly that the latter
might not become meagre in body, but that their flesh might taste
savoury when they sacrificed them to their gods, so sure were these
brave warriors of victory! (p. 165.)

CHAPTER LXXI.

_How four chief personages arrived in our camp to negotiate terms of
peace with us, and what further happened._

We now despaired of concluding the peace we so greatly desired, and
therefore began to prepare for battle. We cleaned and sharpened our
weapons, provided ourselves with arrows, and were making other
preparations for an engagement, when one of our outposts came suddenly
running up with the tidings that a number of Indians of both sexes were
advancing along the principal road of Tlascalla, straightway to our
quarters, laden with packages. One of our horse had rode up to watch
their movements more closely, and now also came galloping up with the
news that the procession was fast approaching our camp, and merely
halted from time to time to take a little res