and turrets, and after arranging the men according to their corps, he ordered the guns to be planted and the sentinels posted, issuing also instructions for the considerate treatment of the natives, and for intercourse generally. Meanwhile the servants had spread a dinner, which Bernal Diaz describes as sumptuous.25
In the afternoon Montezuma reappeared with a large suite. Seating himself beside Cortés,26 he expressed his delight at meeting such valiant men, whose fame and deeds had already aroused his interest during their visits in the two preceding years at Potonchan and Chalchiuhcuecan. If he had sought to prevent their entry into the capital, it was solely because his subjects feared them, with their animals and thunder; for rumors had described them as voracious beings, who devoured at one meal what sufficed for ten times the number of natives, who thirsted for treasures and who came only to tyrannize. He now saw that they were mortals, although braver and mightier than his own race, that the animals were large deer, and that the caged lightning was an exaggeration. He related the Quetzalcoatl myth,27 and expressed his belief that they