ABSTRACT
I have already said in the last chapter how our Captain sent messengers to Cholula to tell the Caciques of that City to come and see us at Tlaxcala. When the Caciques understood what Cortés ordered them to do, they thought that it would be sufficient to send four unimportant Indians to make their excuses, and to say that because they were ill they had not come, and they brought neither food nor anything else, but merely stated that curt reply. The Caciques of Tlaxcala were present when these messengers arrived, and they said to our Captain, that the people of Cholula had sent those Indians to make a mock of him and of all of us, for they were only commoners of no standing; so Cortés at once sent them back with four other Cempoala Indians to tell the people of Cholula that they must send some chieftains, and as the distance was only five leagues that they must arrive within three days, otherwise he should look on them as rebels; that when they came he wished to tell them some things necessary for the salvation of their souls and for the cleanliness of their well being, and to receive them as friends and brothers as he had received their neighbours the people of Tlaxcala, and that if they decided otherwise and did not wish for our friendship that we should take measures which would displease them and anger them.
