With these white flags the natives beckoned the strangers to land; whereupon twenty soldiers were sent ashore under Francisco de Montejo, and a favorable reception being accorded them, the commander approached with his ships and landed. The utmost deference was paid the guests, for, as will hereafter more fully appear, the king of kings, Lord Montezuma, having in his capital intelligence of the strange visitors upon his eastern seaboard, ordered them to be reverentially entertained. In the cool shade was spread on mats an abundance of provisions, while fumes of burning incense consecrated the spot and made redolent the air. The governor of this province was present with two subordinate rulers, and learning what best the Spaniards loved, he sent out and gathered them gold trinkets to the value of fifteen thousand pesos. So valuable an acquisition impelled Grijalva to claim once more for Charles, one of the natives, subsequently christened Francisco, acting as interpreter. After a stay of six days the fleet sailed, passing a small island, white with sand, which Grijalva called Isla Blanca, and then the Isla Verde, gleaming green with foliage amidst the green waters, four leagues from the continent; coming presently to a third island, a league and a half from the mainland, which afforded good anchorage. This, according to Oviedo, was on the 18th of June. On landing the Spaniards found two stone temples, within which lay five human bodies, with bowels opened and limbs cut off; and all about were human heads on poles, while at the top of one of the edifices, ascended by stone steps, was the likeness of a lion in marble, with a hollow head, showing the tongue cut out, and opposite to it a stone idol and blood-fount. Here was evidently a sacrifice to some pagan deity; and touching it is to witness the horror with which these men of Spain regarded such shocking spectacles, while viewing complacently their own atrocious cruelties.