The Conquistadors by Hammond Innes Page A

demanding gold, yet kneeling humbly in the dust before a piece of wood and a picture of a woman with a child … it cannot have made much sense to a man whose gods devoured human hearts by the thousand.
    On their departure for Vera Cruz the Spaniards took the eight girls with them. The most beautiful had been christened Francisca, and once again Cortés had given her to his friend Puertocarrero. He himself had been presented with the fat cacique’s niece, who was extremely ugly; and possibly as a rude joke she had been baptized Catalina. For a man who had been a notorious womaniser Cortés showed himself singularly uninterested in Indian girls. Certainly at this moment he had other things on his mind. A ship had come in from Cuba with Francisco de Saucedo and ten soldiers. More important, they had a horse and a mare on board. They also brought news that Velázquez had been confirmed as
adelantado
of Cuba and had been empowered to trade and found settlements.
    Cortés and his men had now been more than three months on the coast. It was time to move inland. But first a ship must be sent to Spain with a glowing account of the country and all they had achieved, and enough gold to support their own claims. Then all the rest of the fleet must be destroyed, so that thereafter every man would be committed, with no prospect of saving his skin unless they succeeded. Only by this drastic and irrevocable action could the threat of desertion, even mutiny, be finally extinguished.
    As usual Cortés had prepared the ground so carefully that he appeared to be yielding to popular pressure, rather than giving orders. The soldiers themselves prepared a letter to the Emperor Charles summarising all their achievements. This was to be accompanied by all the gold they had so far gained, every man finally agreeing to forego his share so that the total might be as impressive as possible. They also sent four Indians they had rescued from the cages at Zempoala, where they were being fattened for sacrifice. Puertocarrero and Montejo were chosen as envoys. The best ship in the fleet was got ready, fifteen sailors were picked and two pilots allocated, including Alaminos, who knew the Bahamas and so could steer direct for Spain. The soldiers’ letter attacked Velázquez, accused the president of the Council of the Indies, Bishop Fonesca, of having been bribed, and it petitioned that Cortés be confirmed in his office as captain-general in New Spain. Cortés sent his own letter, the first of the five long dispatches he wrote to his king, and the envoys sailed on July 26, 1519, with orders to avoid Cuba.
    The need to destroy his ships before marching into Mexico was impressed on Cortés by yet another attempt to seize a vessel and escape in her to Cuba. This time he sentenced the two leaders to be hanged, the pilot to have his feet amputated, and the men, who all seem to have been from Gibraltar since they are referred to as Men of the Rock, to two hundred lashes. He then left immediately for Zempoala to finalize plans with his Indian allies, and in his absence it is probable that the executions were not carried out. At Zempoala the soldiers themselves seem to have pressed for the destruction of the ships, chiefly on the grounds that by releasing sailors it would reinforce their numbers by almost a hundred. At any rate, the order was finally given and Juan de Escalante, who had been appointed chief constable, was sent to Vera Cruz to see it carried out.
    The plan was to get all the stores and gear ashore, bore holes in the ships’ bottoms and then beach them. It was to be done on the grounds that their hulls were rotten, a fairly reasonable excuse since everyone knew that teredo worm was active in the warm waters of the Gulf. However, sailors are not the most willing collaborators in this sort of work. The job was botched, only five ships being beached as arranged, and Cortés was forced to abandon his subterfuge and order