go Columbus.
The conspiracy was detected upon the eve of its execution. Cortez was
arrested, manacled, thrown into prison, and was, after trial,
sentenced to death for treason. He, however, succeeded in breaking
his fetters, forced open his prison window, and dropped himself down,
in the darkness of the night, from the second story, and escaped to
the sanctuary of a neighboring church. Such a sanctuary, in that day,
could not be violated.

A guard was secreted to watch him. He remained in the church for
several days. But at length impatience triumphed over prudence, and,
as he attempted one night to escape, he was again arrested, more
strongly chained, and was placed on board a ship to be sent to
Hispaniola for execution.

The code of Spanish law was in that day a bloody one. Spanish
governors were almost unlimited despots. Cortez was not willing to go
to Hispaniola with the cord of a convicted traitor about his neck.
With extraordinary fortitude, he drew his feet, mangling them sadly,
through the irons which shackled them. Creeping cautiously upon deck,
he let himself down softly into the water, swam to the shore, and,
half dead with pain and exhaustion, attained again the sanctuary of
the church.

He now consented to marry the young lady with whose affections and
reputation he had so cruelly trifled. The family, of course, espoused
his cause. The governor, who was the lover of her sister, regarded
this as the _amende honorable_, and again received the hot-blooded
cavalier to his confidence. Thus this black and threatening cloud
suddenly disappeared, and sunshine and calm succeeded the storm.
Cortez returned to his estates with his bride a wiser, and perhaps a
better man, from the severe discipline through which he had passed.
Catalina Suarez, whom he married, was an amiable and beautiful lady of
very estimable character. She eventually quite won the love of her
wayward and fickle husband.

"I lived as happily with her," said the haughty Castilian, "as if she
had been the daughter of a duchess."

Velasquez, like every other Spanish governor at that time, was
ambitious of extending his dominions. In the year 1517, a number of
restless spirits, under his patronage, resolved to sail upon a voyage
of discovery and conquest.

Three vessels were fitted out for this adventure. One hundred and ten
men embarked in the enterprise, under the command of Francisco
Hernandez, of Cordova. Velasquez directed them to land upon