But the jealous Governor's resources were not quite exhausted. He despatched swift messengers to other Cuban ports where the expedition must touch for further supplies, ill-provisioned as it was by the hasty departure, with orders for the authorities at these points to detain Cortes at all hazards. It was useless. Far from detention, he received supplies and reinforcements. A number of well-known _hidalgos_ joined him, among them Pedro de Alvarado, Cristoval de Olid, Velasquez de Leon, Gonzalo de Sandoval, Hernandez Puertocarrero, Alonzo de Avila, and others who took a valiant part afterwards in the conquest. At his last port of departure Cortes wrote a letter to Velasquez, of a conciliatory nature: reviewed his forces, which amounted to nearly nine hundred Spaniards and two hundred Indians, with ten heavy guns, several falconets, ample ammunition, and sixteen horses, in eleven vessels. Having addressed the forces in words of enthusiasm, dangling before them the glories of conquest, specially pointing out to them that they were carrying the Cross to set before savages, Cortes invoked the patronage of St. Peter, and the squadron set sail for the shores of Yucatan. How they arrived at the island of Cozumel, fought with the Indians of the mainland, tumbled the gross idols of the savages from their pyramid-temple, and set up an altar to the Virgin; and how they recovered an unfortunate Spaniard who had sojourned eight years, after shipwreck, with the natives of Yucatan; how Alvarado antagonised the natives and Cortes pacified them; and how they sailed thence to the real shores of Mexico, where we left them halting, are fascinating matters of their voyage which we must thus lightly pass over. [Illustration: PREHISTORIC MEXICO: RUINS OF "THE PALACE" AT CHICHEN-YTZA, IN YUCATAN.] Behold a level, sun-beat, wind-swept plain, the drifting sand blown into _medanos_, or sand-hills, by the hurricanes of the gulf, the perennial _norte_. Here are the _Conquistadores_ grouped, Cortes and his associates. Among them is the figure of a woman, and her name is worthy to rank in the first verse and chapter of our story. It is Marina, the beautiful Indian girl who had been given to the Spaniards, among other female slaves, at Tabasco, in Yucatan, and who, Cortes had learned, spoke the language of the Mexicans, in addition to her native Yucatec. So Marina was the interpreter through whose medium understanding was had with the natives. This was in conjunction with the Spaniard Aguilar--the rescued castaway, who spoke the language of Marina. But this was only at first, for as Cortes loved her and she loved him, she soon acquired the Castilian of the _Conquistador_ as his mistress.