ere the one omnipotent soul shall suffer the least abridgment. It was a small matter, and he would do it; all the islands of the Western Inde he would uproot and fling into the face of the Cuban governor before he would yield one jot of his stolen advantage. Each for himself were Velazquez, Columbus, and Charles, and the rest of this world’s great and little ones, and Cortés would be for himself. Henceforth, like Themistocles, though he would die for his country he would not trust her. Return to Cuba he well knew for him was death, or ignominy worse than death. His only way was toward Mexico. As well first as last. All the past life of Cortés, all his purposes for the future, concentred in these resolves to make them the pivot of his destiny. Cortés, master of kings, arbiter of men’s lives! As for these traitors, they shall die; and if other impediments appear, as presently we shall see them appear, be they in the form of eye or right hand, they shall be removed. Tyrant, he might be branded; ay, as well that as another name, for so are great ends often brought to pass by small means. Unpleasant as it may be, the survivors may as well bear in mind that it will be less difficult another time.
So the conspirators are promptly seized and sentenced, Escudero and Cermeño to be hanged, Umbría to lose his feet, and others to receive each two hundred lashes.2 Under cover of his cloth Padre Diaz, the ringleader and most guilty of them all, escapes with a reprimand. As for the rest, though among them were some equally guilty, they were treated with such dissembling courtesy and prudence as either to render them harmless or to convert them into friends. “Happy the man who cannot write, if it save him from such business as this!” exclaimed the commander, as he affixed his name to the death-warrants. For notwithstanding his inexorable resolve he was troubled, and would not see his comrades die though they would have sacrificed him. On the morning of the day of execution he set off at breakneck speed for Cempoala, after ordering two hundred soldiers to follow with the horses and join a similar force which had left three days before under Alvarado.3