There was a roar of approval from the army at this alluring suggestion.  Before most of them fairly knew what they were about they had voted to form a colony under the royal authority, elected Cortes governor as soon as he resigned his former position, and seen the new governor appoint a council in proper form, to aid in the government.

“I knew it,” said Saavedra to himself as he went back, alone, to his quarters.  “Just as people have made up their minds they have got him between the door and the jamb, he is somewhere else.  When he resigned his commission he slipped out from under the government of Cuba, and that has no authority over him.  He has appointed a council made up of his own friends, and now he can hang every one of the Velasquez party if they make any trouble.  But they won’t.”

They did not.  Cortes sent his flagship to Spain with some of his especial friends and some of his particular enemies on board, the enemies to get them out of his way, the friends to defend him to the King against their accusations.  He founded a city which he named Villa Rica de Vera Cruz, the Rich Town of the True Cross.  Then, as the next step toward the invasion of the country, he proceeded to play Indian politics.

First he accepted the invitation of the chief of the Totonacs, and Moteczuma, hearing of it, sent the tax-gatherers to collect tribute and also to demand twenty young men and women to sacrifice to the gods as an atonement for having entertained the strangers.  Cortes expressed lively horror, and advised the chief of the Totonacs to throw the tax-gatherers into prison.  Then he secretly rescued them and telling them how deeply he regretted their misfortunes as innocent men doing their duty to their ruler, he sent them on board his own ships for safe-keeping.  When the Emperor heard what had happened he was enraged against the Totonacs.  If they wished to escape his vengeance now their only chance was to become allies of Cortes.

Thus within a few days after landing, the commander had got all of his own followers and a powerful native tribe so bound up with his fortunes that they could not desert him without endangering their own skins.  He now suggested to two of the pilots that they should report five of the ships to be in an unseaworthy condition from the borings of the teredos—­in those days sheathing for hulls had not been invented, and the ship-worm was a constant danger, in tropical waters especially.  At the pilots’ report Cortes appeared astonished, but saying that there was nothing to do but make the best of it, ordered the ships to be dismantled, the cordage, sails and everything that could be of use brought on shore, and the stripped hulls scuttled and sunk.  Then four more were condemned, leaving but one small ship.