Montoro's countenance reflected the half-smile of his companion. But at the same time he shrugged his shoulders with the reply,
"Ah, well! as Hernando Cortes himself says, better death with honour than life with disgrace."
Unconsciously he uttered the last sentence aloud, and once more he did the General good service. The poor, hard-worn grumblers heard it, and it clenched the argument already so cleverly managed by Cortes.
"Perhaps you have reason, my Señor," exclaimed one of the malcontents. "If we get home alive with our boasted programme of conquest unfulfilled we shall get nought but scorning, it is probable, till we shall wish that verily we had died with our brethren out here. So for my part, after all, I elect to stay."
"To advance, you mean," cried Cortes joyously, making a stride forward to lay his hand, with a well-assumed air of gratitude and friendly familiarity, on the shoulder of the recovered adherent. "There is no 'staying' for us, my friends. We must continue to advance to our appointed goal, or we must retreat. And I frankly tell you all this, that it is my firm belief that our greatest safety, nay, still more, our only safety, lies in progress."
"How so?" boldly demanded a voice in the crowd. "For honour—well, that may be. But for safety!"
"Ay," replied Cortes. "And for safety too, I affirm. And were it not that the experiment would be too costly I would soon prove my assertion to be well-founded. Hitherto our course has been one of unbroken advance, and victory over one petty state after another, and all have become awed by our strange power. Let us make but one day's journey backwards, as though disheartened or worn out, and the spell would be broken; our enemies, forgetting their own petty squabbles for the time, would unite for the destruction of the common enemy and invader, and by the mere force of numbers we should be overwhelmed as with an avalanche. But now we are once more united, my hands feel strong once more, and I will most surely lead you on, my comrades, to a full and final success."
"Meantime," remarked Juan de Cabrera, in a tone of as much satisfaction as marked Cortes' own voice, "meantime, my very good friends and brothers, I see yonder a party of these worthy redskin cooks advancing in the very nick of time with our dinner. And I confess that, for my part, I would fain for the present put by the questions of backwards or forwards, and stay a while to help clear their dishes for them."
Apparently Don Juan's sentiments were remarkably similar at the moment to those of the rest of his companions, and, after a good meal, Cortes found his band once more ready with alacrity to follow whither he might choose to lead.
Their first destination was the beautiful and sacred city of Cholula—the Rome, as it were, of Mexico. The Tlascalans eagerly warned the Spaniards against approaching it or entering its streets. The Cholulans, they declared, were fair speaking but crafty, making amends to themselves for cowardly weakness by cunning, and the most unscrupulous treachery.