The one bore a bad wound in the head, which they had given him when stripping him. They came to me, as I called to them from where I was concealed, and recounted to me the cruel deaths and punishments which the English had inflicted upon more than one hundred Spaniards they had taken.
With this intelligence there was no lack of affliction; but God gave me strength; and after I had commended myself to Him, and to His blessed Mother, I said to those two soldiers: "Let us proceed to the ships where these people are going about plundering, perhaps we shall find something to eat or drink, for it is certain that I shall die of hunger." And going in that direction, we began to see dead bodies, which was a great grief and pity to see those whom the sea continued casting up. There were stretched out upon that strand more than four hundred, among whom we recognised some, and the poor Don Diego Enriquez, whom, with all my sad plight, I did not wish to pass by without burying him in a pit, which we made in the sand, at the water's edge. We laid him there along with another very honourable captain, a great friend of mine, and we had not quite finished burying them, when there came up to us two hundred savages, to see what we were doing. We said to them, by signs, that we were placing there those men who were our brothers, that the crows might not eat them.
Then we went off, and searched for something to eat along the shore—of biscuits, which the sea was casting up—when four savages came up to me to strip me of the clothing which I wore, and another was grieved and took them away; seeing that, they began to maltreat me: and he may have been a chief, for they respected him.
This man, by the grace of God, assisted me and my two companions, and brought us away from there, and remained a good while in our company, until he put us on a road which led from the coast to a village where he lived. There he told us to await him, and that he would return soon and put us[[17]] on the way to a good place.
Along with all this misery, that road was very stony, and I was unable to move or go a step forward, because I went shoe-less, and dying with pain in one of my legs, which was severely wounded. My poor companions were naked and freezing with the cold, which was very great; and not being able to exist nor assist me, they went on in front by the road, and I remained there supplicating God's favour.
He aided me, and I began to move along, little by little, and reached a height, from whence I discovered some huts of straw;[[18]] and going towards them by a valley, I entered a wood.[[19]] When I had gone a distance of two shots of an arquebus in it, an old savage of more than seventy years came out from behind the rocks, and two young men, with their arms—one English, the other French—and a girl of the age of twenty years, most beautiful[[20]] in the extreme, who were all going to the shore to plunder.
When they saw me pass among the trees, they changed their course towards me, and the Englishman came up saying, "Yield, Spanish poltroon,"[[21]] and made a slash at me with a knife, desiring to kill me. I warded off the blow with a stick which I carried in my hand; but, in the end, he got at me, and cut the sinew of my right leg. He wanted to repeat the blow immediately, had not the savage come up with his daughter, who may have been this Englishman's friend,[[22]] and I replied he might do what he wished to me, for fortune had subdued me, and deprived me of my arms in the sea. They took him away from me then, and the savage began to strip me, to the taking off of my shirt, under which I wore a gold chain of the value of rather more than a thousand dollars.[[23]] When they saw it, they rejoiced greatly, and searched the jacket,[[24]] thread by thread, in which I carried forty-five crown-pieces in gold, that the Duke had ordered to be given to me at Corunna for two months' pay;[[25]] and when the Englishman saw that I carried a chain and crown-pieces, he wanted to take me prisoner, saying that he should be offered a ransom. I replied that I had nothing to give; that I was a very poor soldier, and had gained that, what they saw, in the ship. The girl lamented much to see the bad treatment I received, and asked them to leave me the clothes, and not to injure me any more. They all returned to the hut of the savage, and I remained among those trees, bleeding from the wound which the Englishman had inflicted upon me. I proceeded to put on again my jacket and sack-coat; moreover, they had taken away my shirt, and some relics of great value which I wore in a small garment [vestment], of the Order of the Holy Trinity, that had been given to me at Lisbon.
These the savage damsel took and hung them round her neck, making me a sign that she wished to keep them, saying to me that she was a Christian: which she was in like manner as Mahomet.
From her hut they sent me a boy with a poultice made of herbs, to put upon my wound, and butter and milk and a small piece of oaten bread to eat.
I applied the dressing and ate the food, and the boy went along the road with me, showing me the direction I had to go, and advising me to avoid a village which could be seen from thence, where they had killed many Spaniards, and not one escaped that they could lay their hands upon.