SOMETHING OF THE CAPTAINS OF CORTÉS—ALVARADO—MONTEJO—ÁVILA—OLID—SANDOVAL—LEON—ORDAZ—MORLA—THE PASSAGE—THE FLEET STRUCK BY A SQUALL—ARRIVAL AT COZUMEL—ALVARADO CENSURED—SEARCH FOR THE CAPTIVE CHRISTIANS—ARRIVAL OF AGUILAR—HIS CHASTE ADVENTURES—THEY COME TO TABASCO RIVER—BATTLES THERE—CONQUEST OF THE NATIVES—PEACE MADE—TWENTY FEMALE SLAVES AMONG THE PRESENTS—THE FLEET PROCEEDS ALONG THE SHORE—PUERTOCARRERO’S WITTICISM—ARRIVAL AT SAN JUAN DE ULUA. As the everlasting waves that bowl his ships along are discoursing to Cortés of his destiny, let us make the acquaintance of his captains, some of whom are to play parts in the Anáhuac amphitheatre secondary only to his own. First, there was the fiery and impetuous Pedro de Alvarado, a hero of the Achilles or Sir Lancelot school, strong and symmetrical as a goddess-born; haughty, choleric, sometimes stanch and generous; passionate in his loves and hates, with the usual mixture of license, loyalty, and zeal for the church. He had not eyes to see, from where he stood in the warfare of his day, at once the decline of the fiercer barbarism and the dawn of a truer and gentler heroism. Already we have discovered flashes of temper and tendencies to treachery that display his character by too sulphurous a flame; but we shall find in him much to admire as conquistador and governor. Alvarado was about the age of Cortés, Bajadoz being his native place. There his father, Diego de Alvarado, comendador de Lobon in the order of Santiago, and his mother, Sara de Contreras, struggled with poverty to maintain the reputation of a good family name. At the age of twenty-five Pedro came over to Santo Domingo, and prompted by vanity paraded himself in an old gown of his fathers, whereon was sewn the red cross of Santiago. At first he wore this garment inside out, giving as a reason his reduced circumstances which made him ashamed to publicly own the rank of knight. On being reproved by the admiral, he boldly affixed the insignia to his other dresses, and thenceforth called and signed himself the Comendador Alvarado.[104] The title was never openly questioned in the Indies, where men had little time for inquiring into the affairs of others, and Alvarado failed not with his plausible tongue and crafty nature to use it for obtaining certain privileges and advancement.