strengthened the prevailing opinion that the next arrivals were in reality the children of the God of the air. By a most fortuitous accident the Spanish captive, Aguilar, was rescued from the Indians of Yucatan, and thus a means of communication opened with the Tabascans, and, through the wonderful acquisition of Marina, with the Mexicans themselves. A most astonishing series of circumstances had thus operated in his favor. Is it improbable that Cortez should have looked upon these events as special dispensations of the Almighty in his behalf?
Their provisions were low and of poor quality, the mosquitoes were pestering them night and day, thirty or forty of their number were sick from their wounds, and there was a strong party, the friends and relations of Velasquez in particular, who were anxious to return to Cuba, and tried to excite a mutiny against the authority of Cortez. But by putting some in irons, and pacifying others with gold, he won the majority over to his side, and they soon chose to remain and retain him as their general, independent of Velasquez. It would probably have been death to Cortez to return to Cuba at this time, for he had neither the favor of the governor nor of his sovereign. It was while these quarrels were going on among the Spaniards, snarling over their captures like wolves in a sheepfold, that another of those aids in the propulsion of the army towards the capital came to hand. Some Indians one day approached them, and stated that they were of a province subject to Montezuma, but that their cacique wished to throw off his allegiance and ally himself with the strangers. They were Totonacs, who, you will remember, were subjugated by the Aztecs not many years before—being among the last acquisitions by the Mexican crown. The cruelties and exactions of the Aztecs had turned their hearts from them, for they not only demanded tribute of
