my
message. At which the King, taking the lead, answered, for all, in the
same words as above, '_Cato cato vale_.' 'We will answer soon.' And the
King, speaking aside with me, asked what it was I wished to hear; to
which I replied, 'to know if you wish to receive the law of God and the
friendship of the Spaniards which I offered you yesterday, and if you
wish to undertake to be Christians, as has been prophesied to you by
your prophets, since you are not ignorant of them. The time has come.'
To which the King, together with the two other priests who were with
him, replied to me that they were willing to become Christians, but
that they did not know how that kind of baptism which I had explained
to them was to be carried out. Then I, taking as a text that verse of
Ezekiel, 'I will sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean;
from all your iniquities and your idols will I cleanse you,' explained
the said text to them, item by item.... They replied to this in these
words,--'_ba valac a toca vale_,' which means 'so it will be when
tomorrow dawns and we shall see it.' With this we all went to the
temple, where we stopped and where they were present all night. Before
God brought the dawn, they had already caused to be brought some cups
of warm _posole_, which they are accustomed to drink, so that with this
and the rest of the supplies which they use, such as ..., beans, cooked
squashes, flesh of wild pigs, prawns and other kinds of fish, with
whatever each man found in his house, and all this with many tortillas
of maize bread, and they did not stop bringing these till night; there
being an excess of everything, so that when we saw that these same
people did not depart from here, we gave it back again to them to eat,
which they did, the King beginning first."

A Baptism Performed. "Having breakfasted this first day on warm
_posole_, we began for the third time to speak about the spiritual
lecture of the day before, ... and having heard for the third time this
lecture, anxious to receive the said baptism, although suspicious of
what it was, since they thought that there was some shedding of blood
or circumcision or cutting of some part of their body, they said that
they wished to see in one case how that was done, and at this time the
King, taking hold of one child of the many of his family which he had
concealed behind the temple for the said purpose, said to me,--'Do that
which you speak of to this child and I wil