"Yes," replied the priest; "such as are holy." "Then I will not go there!" Hatuey energetically rejoined. "I will never go to a place where I shall meet one of that cruel people." The poor Indian was burned to ashes. The natives gazed upon the spectacle with horror. They were appalled, and ventured to make no farther resistance to their terrible conquerors. Such is Spain's title-deed to the island of Cuba. God has not smiled upon regions thus infamously won. May the United States take warning that all her possessions may be honorably acquired. "God helps," says blind unbelief, "the heavy battalions;" but experience has fully proved that "the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong." One or two colonies were soon established upon the conquered island. They grew very rapidly. Velasquez was appointed governor; Cortez was his secretary. Many families were enticed from Spain by the charms of this most beautiful of the isles of the ocean. A gentleman came from old Castile with four beautiful daughters. Velasquez became attached to one; Cortez trifled grievously with the affections of another. The governor reproached him for his infamous conduct. The proud spirit of Cortez could not brook reproof, and he entered into a conspiracy to proffer complaints against the governor, and to secure his removal. It was a bold and a perilous undertaking. Cortez prepared to embark in an open boat, and push out fearlessly but secretly into the open sea, to make a voyage of nearly sixty miles to Hispaniola. There he was to enter his complaints to Diego Columbus. The conspiracy was detected upon the eve of its execution. Cortez was arrested, manacled, thrown into prison, and was, after trial, sentenced to death for treason. He, however, succeeded in breaking his fetters, forced open his prison window, and dropped himself down, in the darkness of the night, from the second story, and escaped to the sanctuary of a neighboring church. Such a sanctuary, in that day, could not be violated. A guard was secreted to watch him. He remained in the church for several days. But at length impatience triumphed over prudence, and, as he attempted one night to escape, he was again arrested, more strongly chained, and was placed on board a ship to be sent to Hispaniola for execution. The code of Spanish law was in that day a bloody one. Spanish governors were almost unlimited despots. Cortez was not willing to go to Hispaniola with the cord of a convicted traitor about his neck. With extraordinary fortitude, he drew his feet, mangling them sadly, through the irons which shackled them. Creeping cautiously upon deck, he let himself down softly into the water, swam to the shore, and, half dead with pain and exhaustion, attained again the sanctuary of the church.