that they were going to make mince
meat of us and eat us. We started that night, as I have said, and I
will tell about it more fully farther on. So that, when they came for
me, they found themselves tricked.

"In a rage at seeing their purposes frustrated, the said Cacique Can
and his Captain Covoh and the other Cacique Covoh returned to their
homes with sixty Indian warriors of their followers.... The said
Chakanytzaes Indians came painted red and ready for war to the camp of
the General Alonso Garcia de Paredes, saying that I had sent them for
the ornaments and the rest of the baggage which I had left in the
deserted town of Chuntuci, a land adjoining the nation of the Cehaches,
and that they came for the Padre who was taking care of these
things.... On their saying to the General that they came for the
ornaments, being sent by me, the said General said to them, 'Nor does
his servant come with you?' 'Neither does he come,' they replied, 'so
he merely sends us in this way.' Then he brought out wine to give them
and sent them with the Padre Apostolic Notary to the said town of
Chuntuci, which was distant some few leagues from the camp, that he
might deliver to them the baggage and sacred vessels."

Paredes' Stupidity; the Plot of the Chakan Itzas. "Cursed be the
ignorance which causes so great losses in this way! Of how great
importance is knowledge and experience for the proper despatch of
things! This General has no more knowledge or experience, except for
cutting wild trees in the forest where he has always been placed,
cutting timber for building the ships which sail from the port of
Campeche. And so he missed at the present time the greatest victory
which could be gained in this kingdom of Yucatan.... Is it possible
that reason did not tell him, even if he was ignorant of the said
points and of the military laws, that a priest and minister of God was
not going to send sixty Indians for the sacred vessels and the Padre
who guarded them, without sending him a message in writing (as I
promised to do when I took my leave) or without writing to the said
Padre my companion to come with them? Is it possible that, on seeing
that neither had I sent even one of the four Indians who accompanied
me, even if I was not able to write, so that they could deliver the
sacred things to him, he was not surprised enough to infer from that,
either that what the sixty Indians said was false, or that they had
killed us,--especially a