"Nay, croaker," exclaimed a voice between contempt and indignation. "There is many an Indian now living will have cause to wish that thine ill prophecy were a true one, before our friend Pedro rids him of his troublesome body. But come thou with me. I would rather try my hand at putting some spirit into thee, than leave thee to rob our comrades of the measure that is theirs." And so saying Cortes, who had come up at a somewhat opportune moment, marched off the crestfallen, discontented priest to his own quarters to receive a pretty sharp lecture, spite his reverend profession, before he was released. All the same, the priest's mischievous growls had already borne fruit, and the following morning, before the tents were struck, the Captain-General had to receive a deputation from the malcontents, who were too numerous to be treated with anger or disdain. "But you are so foolish!" exclaimed Hernando, indeed trembling at the desperate state of the mighty cause he had in hand. "Ye speak as though it were for my glory alone, to fill my pockets with gold only, that ye have all thus fought and struggled and endured until now! Is it not likewise for yourselves? If our achievements shall be so stupendous and so glorious that they hand my name down to after-ages, will not your names also gain the like renown?" Cortes put the exclamation as a declared certainty, but his hearers rather accepted it as a question, and a shrunken-limbed, white-lipped soldier from amidst the group rejoined harshly-- "Nay, not so, Captain. Those who live through the battle win their spurs, like enough; but those who die, e'en though it be on the eve of victory, so it be before the battle is decided, think you their names get handed down? Faith, no, then. Fame is like other riches, limited in quantity, and so it is reserved, like many another thing, for those who walk over their comrades' dead bodies to success." As the man ended his speech he staggered from weakness, and would have fallen forward to the ground on his face but that Montoro, who had been standing beside the General to guard him in case of mutiny, saw the poor fellow sinking, and sprang forward in time to catch him in his arms. Cortes had been hitherto standing fronting his discontented followers with an air of proud resolve, every inch the commander, and the indomitable discoverer and conqueror, but now his countenance suddenly changed, softened, and his lips trembled. He was the man with a genial temper and a warm heart once more--the very comrade indeed of the meanest soldier in his company, who bore all that they had to bear, eat the same food, and shared all the same privations and fatigues; or rather, differed in this, that he took the lion's share of every discomfort whenever it was possible.