crowds of women and children withdrawing from the city with their valuable
effects, all of which were sure signs of some impending commotion. Cortes
thanked the Tlascalans for this instance of their fidelity, and sent them
back to the camp with orders to their chiefs to hold themselves in
readiness for any emergency. He then returned to the chiefs and priests,
to whom he repeated his former orders, warning them not to deviate from
their obedience, on pain of instant condign punishment, commanding them at
the same time to prepare 2000 of their best warriors to accompany him next
day on his march to Mexico. The chiefs readily promised to obey all his
commands, thinking in this manner to facilitate their projected treachery,
and took their leave. Cortes then employed Donna Marina to bring back the
two priests who had been with him before, from whom he learnt, that
Montezuma had been lately very unsettled in his intentions towards us,
sometimes giving orders to receive us honourably, and at other times
commanding that we should not be allowed to pass. That he had lately
consulted his gods, who had revealed that we were all to be put to death,
or made prisoners in Cholula, to facilitate which he had sent 20,000 of
his troops to that place, half of whom were now in the city, and the rest
concealed at the distance of a league. They added, that the plan of
attack was all settled, and that twenty of our number were to be
sacrificed in the temples of Cholula, and all the rest to be conveyed
prisoners to Mexico. Cortes rewarded them liberally for their
intelligence, and enjoined them to preserve the strictest secrecy on the
subject, commanding them to bring all the chiefs to his quarters at an
appointed time. He then convened a council of all the officers, and such
soldiers as he most confided in, before whom he laid an account of the
information which he had received, desiring their advice as to the best
conduct to be pursued in the present alarming emergency. Some proposed to
return immediately to Tlascala, and others proposed various measures, but
it was the universal opinion that the treachery of the Cholulans required