Seven men now declared they were positively determined to return home; Cortes, therefore, desired they should be brought before him, and asked them, "Why they wished to play him such a vile trick?" They answered in rather an angry tone, "That they could not help feeling astonished, he should think of founding a colony with a handful of men in a country full of towns possessing many thousands of inhabitants. They were suffering from indisposition, quite tired of roving about, and desired to return to their settlements in Cuba; he ought, therefore, to grant them their discharge according to promise." To this Cortes answered, in the mildest manner possible, that he had made such promise indeed; but, that they would be acting in a manner forgetful of their duty to desert the standard of their captain at a time when he was meditating an expedition: at the same time he commanded them to embark themselves immediately, and provided them with a vessel, cassave-bread, a bottle of oil, a quantity of vegetables, and such things as ships generally take on distant voyages. One of these men, a certain Moron of Delbayamo, had a well-trained horse, and exchanged it most profitably with Juan Ruano for some valuable property the latter had at Cuba. When these men were about to set sail, the rest of our troops, headed by the alcaldes and regidors of the town of Vera Cruz, repaired to Cortes and begged of him to issue an order that no one should leave the country, an order which both the service of God and his majesty required, declaring that they considered every one merited death who could think of such a thing, surrounded as we were by such numerous enemies, nor could we look upon them in any other light than men who wished to desert their commander and his standard in the midst of battle and in the moment of the greatest danger. Cortes, nevertheless, did as if he was desirous of discharging the malcontents, but soon after countermanded this order. All they got for their pains was contempt and disgrace, while Moron in the bargain was done out of his horse, which Juan Ruano had no wish to return him. Upon this Cortes gave orders for our march, and we arrived without any accident in Tzinpantzinco. CHAPTER LI. _What happened to us at Tzinpantzinco, and how, on our return to Sempoalla, we destroyed all the idols; likewise of other matters._