For once the temper of the easy-going cavalier seemed somewhat ruffled as he growled out—
"The beggar brats in the streets of Madrid can be ready enough in their onslaughts on defenceless foes. They are as swift another way when an officer of justice shows his face."
Montoro de Diego restored his sword to its sheath, and stepped up to the angry knight with outstretched hand.
"Forgive my jest, Don Juan," he said with a smile. "You should do so the more easily, inasmuch as you must remember that I did but turn your own against yourself. I have little fear that when need comes either you or I will be found wanting in due bravery."
"And I have still less," added Cortes. "Meantime I confess that I should turn coward, did I find my best friends drawing on me."
Thus cleverly did the Commander of the present bold enterprise heal any little remnant of soreness that might have rankled in the breast of one of his retainers.
With enemies of his own countrymen behind him, and a nation likely to prove filled with formidable foes before him, Hernando Cortes felt anxious enough to have good fellowship reigning in his camp.
"How else," he said a little later on to Montoro, between jest and earnest—"how else, friend Diego, thinkest thou that I shall be able to obtain for our gracious and royal master those 'comfortable presents of gold, pearls, and precious stones,' which are required of us, as proofs of the natives' good-will and the success of our expedition?"
Montoro shrugged his shoulders with some haughty impatience.
"Methinks, Captain, with our countrymen now-a-days it is gold before all things. If possible, no doubt, gold and glory both; but if not, gold at any rate, even with disgrace."