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SPANISH CONQUEST OF YUCATAN AND THE ITZAS

These brought the news that there had been a disturbance in Peten, on account of there having come in the part where we had entered Indians from this side of the Province, and that they had heard musket shots, with a rumor of Spaniards. I do not know if this was true, but what we experienced from this time on from the Indians of that town where we were staying was that they cooled off entirely in that affection with which up to that time they had regarded us, showing us a thousand slights without paying any attention to giving us the guide which we asked for. The change in their hearts came to such an extreme that they called a meeting (drinking a great deal of their drink, with which not only they get drunk, as they were then, but with which they worship). We came then to a time when on that night the taking of our lives had been determined on, had not God wished that I should learn about the matter; and so I taking from them the implements of their feast, and reproving them for the little firmness of their hearts, they came to understand that we knew the wickedness of their actions. Then they all gathered together around us, and without any more noise or disturbance, they kept us company all night. Scarcely had the dawn come when (perhaps in remorse for their sin) they began to treat us with the same affection as at the beginning and to give us an Indian who guided us to the other farms, half a league from there, which, from the abundance of the fruit, appeared an orchard. There was another priest called Chomach punab, who received us with very great kindness, giving orders to call all the Indians, men and women, in the vicinity, so that they might see us, and asking us to stop and have something to eat. We yielded to his importunity in order, by showing ourselves pleased, to reciprocate so much kindness as they showed us. The wife of one of the four Indians who I said before came to Merida, named Ahtec, spoke to me. Hardly had we accepted the invitation, when all the Indian women went to their houses, to make something for us to eat; and in a short time they came back, each one of them with her bowl of meat, according to what they had, with many tortillas, so that we, with the Indians who accompanied us, should eat; the Indians promising us that some of them would accompany