But not for long. The stern design of the Spaniards had been forced, and was growing. "I vowed to your Royal Highness that I would have Montezuma prisoner, or dead, or subject to your Majesty," wrote Cortes to Carlos V. of Spain, from Vera Cruz; and "Think you we were such Spaniards as to lie there idly?" wrote Bernal Diaz, the soldier-penman, afterwards. Yet there was some disaffection in the camp, a portion of the men, wearied of inaction and fearful of dangers, desiring to return to Cuba. Here Cortes's diplomacy came to the rescue. "On board, all of you!" he exclaimed. "Back to Cuba and its Governor, and see what happens!" The threat and sneer had the effect he expected. Scarcely a man would return, but on the contrary they clamoured for the establishment of a colony and for a march on Montezuma and his capital, whilst the few who remained disaffected were clapped in irons, among them the _hidalgo_ Velasquez, a relative of the Governor of Cuba. And now it was that the key to the situation was put into the hands of Cortes. An embassy from a semi-civilised, powerful nation to the north, upon the gulf-shores--the Totonacs, of Cempoalla, as they announced themselves--suddenly arrived in the colony of the Christians. They brought an invitation from their chief for the Spaniards to visit him, with the information--and here was the circumstance which should make conquest possible--that the Totonacs were weary of the Aztec yoke, and yearned for independence. "Ha!" thought Cortes and his _hidalgo_ associates, "they are delivered into our hands! They are divided, and so they will fall." Father Olmedo, the wise and pious confessor of the forces, to whose prudence the security of the Spaniards owed much, and who was the representative of the great Church which became so potent in those lands, blessed his comrades' conclaves, and celebrated solemn Masses. Indeed, every move of the Spaniards was accomplished under such auspices, and was always referred by Cortes to the influence of the desire to carry the Cross of Christ and all it embodied, to those heathen peoples; and in a spirited address to the soldiers he declared that "without this motive their expedition was but one of oppression and robbery." The true proportions of piety and hypocrisy contained in these expressions and acts must be left to the knowledge of human nature of the reader. Suffice to say that the Spaniards did, to a large extent, look upon themselves as Crusaders, and that a militant religious fervour animated them, in conjunction with a spirit of avarice and cruelty.