The enemies and savages, who were on the beach stripping those who had been able to reach it by swimming, did not touch me nor approach me, seeing me, as I have said, with my legs and hands and my linen trousers covered with blood. In this condition I proceeded, little by little, as I could, meeting many Spaniards stripped to the skin, without any kind of clothing whatsoever upon them, chattering with the cold, which was severe, and thus I stopped for the night in a deserted place, and was forced to lie down upon some rushes on the ground, with the great pain I suffered in my leg.
Presently a gentleman came up to me, a very nice young fellow, quite naked, and he was so dazed that he could not speak, not even to tell me who he was; and at that time, which would be about nine o'clock at night, the wind was calm and the sea subsiding. I was then wet through to the skin,[[12]] dying with pain and hunger, when there came up two people—one of them armed, and the other with a large iron axe in his hands—and upon reaching me and the other [man] who was with me, we remained silent, as if we had not anything amiss [with us]. They were sorry to see us; and without speaking a word to us, cut a quantity of rushes and grass, covered us well, and then betook themselves to the shore to plunder and break open[[13]] money-chests and whatever they might find, at which work more than two thousand savages and Englishmen, who were stationed in garrisons near there, took part.
Managing to rest a little, I began to doze; and when fast asleep, at about one o'clock in the night, I was disturbed by a great noise of men on horseback—there were more than two hundred of them—who were going to plunder and destroy the ships. I turned to call my companion, to see if he slept, and found he was dead, which occasioned me great affliction and grief. I got to know afterwards that he was a man of position. There he lay on the ground with more than six hundred other dead bodies which the sea cast up, and the crows and wolves[[14]] devoured them, without there being any one to bury them: not even poor Don Diego Enriquez.
At the dawn of day I began to walk, little by little, searching for a monastery of monks, that I might repair[[15]] to it [or might recover in it] as best I could, which I arrived at with much trouble and toil. I found it deserted, and the church and images of the saints burned and completely ruined, and twelve Spaniards hanging within the church by the act of the Lutheran English, who went about searching for us to make an end of all of us who had escaped [from the perils of the sea. All the monks had fled] to the woods[[16]] for fear of the enemies, who would have sacrificed them as well if they had caught them, as they were accustomed to do, leaving neither place of worship nor hermitage standing; for they had demolished them all, and made them drinking-places for cows and swine.
In order that you may occupy yourself somewhat after dinner, by way of amusement, in reading this letter, which will almost appear as if taken from some book of chivalry, I write it at such length, so that you may imagine the risks and hardships that I have experienced.
As I did not meet with any one at the said monastery, except the Spaniards hanging within from the iron window gratings of the church, I sallied forth speedily, and betook myself to a road which lay through a great wood. When I had gone by it for the matter of a mile, I met with a woman of more than eighty years of age, a rough savage, who was carrying off five or six cows to hide them in that wood, so that the English who had come to stop in her village might not take them.
As she saw me, she stopped and recognised me, and said to me: "Thou Spain." I said yes to her by signs, and that I had been shipwrecked. She began to lament much and to weep, making me signs that I was near her house, but not to go there, as there were numerous enemies in it, and they had cut the heads off many Spaniards. All this was affliction and hardship for me, as I travelled alone, and badly injured by a stick of timber, which almost broke my legs in the water.
At last, with the information of the old woman, I decided to go to the shore, where the ships lay that were wrecked three days before, where many parties of people went about carting away and removing to their huts all our effects [spoils].
I did not venture to show myself, nor to approach them, in order that they might not strip me of the poor linen garment I had on my back or kill me, until I saw two poor Spanish soldiers approaching, stripped naked as when they were born, crying out and calling upon God to help them.