Hastening gaily forward, they surrounded the warriors with their dainty offerings. They hung a chaplet of roses about the general's helmet, and wreaths about his charger's neck. As for the yellow-haired Alvarado and the laughing Cabrera, they were very soon converted into tolerable imitations of the English Maypole, or the May-day Jack-in-the-green, their fine Spanish eyes beaming out of the midst of their bright coverings, upon their decorators, with a smiling good-humour that gave little warning of future headlong and annihilating cruelty.
At length the Europeans reached the city, and silence fell upon them as they slowly entered the narrow, crowded streets, and paced along to a temple assigned them by the Cacique for their quarters, during their stay in his dominion.
Not one of the band would have now retreated from the enterprise on hand had he been able. At the same time, for a company of about six or seven hundred men to be cooped up within a close-built town, of whose ins and outs they knew nothing, and in this position to be surrounded by thirty thousand people who might prove to be crafty enemies, was a state of affairs to make even the most reckless feel just a little bit like wishing that they had at least two pairs of eyes, and one of them situated in the back of their heads.
No one saw fit to demur when Cortes announced, on arriving at the temple, that he intended to double the usual number of the sentinels to keep watch at night, and that the whole force was to maintain a constant state of the utmost vigilance, and readiness for any surprise.
"Moreover," concluded the General, with resolute determination of manner, "moreover, comrades, it is my absolute command, on pain of death, that none leave the precincts of our present quarters without my leave, on any pretext whatsoever. I will myself shoot the first who does."
"Umph," muttered Cabrera with a little raising of his eyebrows. "You speak very positively, my Captain. How would it be with your word if you did not get the chance!"
"Just so," returned Alvarado in the same tone. "My fears of being caught hold of by those bloodthirsty idol-priests would do more to keep me from straying, than any threats of being shot if I were lucky enough to get back to camp again. Meantime, here comes a party of well-laden cooks. Whatever other fate they intend for us, it is apparently not starvation."
As those two thus talked together, Montoro de Diego was no little startled by one of the women, with a flower-decked basket of maize cakes in her hands, and cheeks streaming with tears, separating herself with some quiet caution from her fellows, and coming up to him with her gift, and with eyes that besought, with all the power of mute eloquence, for a hearing for some tale of sorrow.
Montoro had been wandering with a vivid interest through some of the numerous apartments of the temple, opening on to the courtyard where the rest of his comrades were assembled, and he was standing within one of the halls, and alone, when the woman caught sight of him. The bringing of the maize bread was but a pretext for an interview.
"Be comforted. Trust me; I will do what I can," said Montoro, with the flush of deep excitement on his face, after listening for a few moments to the poor creature's broken utterances.