to discountenance publicly those who murmured at his confinement, or to arrest the leading conspirators for his deliverance. He granted a province to the Castilian crown and swore allegiance to it. He collected the tribute and revenue from dependant cities or districts in the name of the Spanish king; and, at last, struck a blow even at his hereditary and superstitious faith by ordering the great Teocalli to be purged of its human gore and the erection of an altar on its summit, on which, before the cross and the images of the Virgin and her Son, the Christian mass might be celebrated in the presence of the Aztec multitude.
It was at this moment, when Cortéz tried the national nerve most daringly by interfering with the religious superstitions of a dissatisfied town, and when every symptom of a general rebellion
was visible, that the conqueror received the startling news of the arrival on the coast of Don Pamphilo de Narvaez, with eighteen vessels and nine hundred men, who had been sent, by the revengeful Velasquez, to arrest the hero and send him in chains to St. Jago.