I remained without breathing, and my companions, who had been aroused, [were] watching the savage very attentively from under the straw, and what he intended to do.
It was the will of God that he went out and left, with many others who had come along with him, to reap and work close to the huts in a place where we could not go out without being seen. We remained quiet, buried alive, discussing what it would suit us to do, and we decided not to disinter ourselves, nor to move from that place while those heretic[[27]] savages were there, who were from the place where so much evil was done to the poor fellows of our Spaniards whom they caught; and they would have done the same to us if they had perceived us there, where we had no one to protect us but God.
Thus passed the whole day; and then, when night came on, the traitors departed to shelter themselves at their villages, while we awaited the rising of the moon.
Then wrapped up with straw and hay, for it was extremely cold, we sallied forth from that great danger, in which we had been, without waiting for the day.
We went along, stumbling in the mud, and dying with hunger, thirst, and pain, until God was pleased to bring us to a land of some safety, where we found huts of better people, although all savages, but Christians and charitable. One of them, seeing that I came so badly treated and wounded, took me to his hut and dressed my wounds, he and his wife and sons, and he did not permit me to depart till it appeared I should be well able to reach the village I was bound for. In it I met with more than seventy Spaniards, who all went about naked and severely maltreated, because the chief was not there.
He had gone to defend a territory which the English were coming to take; and although this man is a savage, he is a very good Christian and an enemy of heretics, always carrying on war with them. He is called Señor de Ruerque [O'Rourke].
I arrived at his house with great exertion, enveloped in straw and swathed around the body with a piece of matting, in such a plight that no one could see me without being moved to great compassion.
Some of the savages gave me a bad old blanket, full of vermin, with which I covered myself, and somewhat improved matters.
Early next day, about twenty of us Spaniards collected together at the house of this Señor de Ruerque [O'Rourke], in order that they might give us something to eat, for the love of God; and while we were there begging, news was told us that a Spanish ship was at the coast, that she was very large, and came for those Spaniards who had escaped.
With this news, without waiting longer, the whole twenty of us left for the direction where they told us the ship was, and we met with many hindrances on the way; though, for me it was an advantage and a mercy which God granted me that I did not arrive at the port where she was in the same manner as the others who were with me reached it. They embarked on board of her, as she belonged to the Armada, and had arrived there in a great gale[[28]] with her main-mast and rigging much injured. Fearing that the enemy might burn her or do her some other injury, for which energetic preparations were being made, they set sail from thence in two days with the crew that came in her and those they had picked up, returning, to run aground and get wrecked, on the same coast. More than two hundred persons were drowned, and those who reached the shore by swimming were taken by the English and all put to death.[[29]] It pleased God that I alone remained of the twenty who went in search of her, for I did not suffer like the others. For ever blessed be His Most Holy Pity for so great mercies as He has shown to me.