Early next day Cortés ordered an Altar to be put up and Mass to be said, for now we had both the wine and the sacred wafers.

It was the priest Juan Diaz who said the Mass, for the Padre de la Merced was ill with fever and very feeble. There were present Mase Escasi and Xicotenga the elder and other Caciques. When Mass was over Cortés entered his lodging with some of us soldiers who usually accompanied him, and the two old Caciques, and Xicotenga said to him that they wished to bring him a present, and Cortés showed much affection to them, and said that they should bring it whenever they wished, so some mats were at once spread out and covered with a cloth, and they brought six or seven trifles of gold, and some stones of small value, and some loads of henequen cloth; it was all very poor and not even worth twenty dollars and when it had been presented, those Caciques said, laughing, “Malinche, we know well enough that as what we have to give is so small you will not receive it with good grace.