ed that he did not fight,
or leave, that place, where he remained seated in a chair. He divided
his soldiers there--numbering, it is said, about one thousand men--into
two bodies. Part of them he sent through the principal street of the
city, and the others along the beach. The latter took the same route
as those who arrived on the first day. Besides these two squadrons,
other men were sent along the river-bank.

12. They were allowed to land, which has been considered a great
mistake; for all along the shore the land is covered with grass high
enough to form a fine ambuscade, where the arquebusiers could easily
have been placed under cover. The corsair might haye been easily
killed with one shot, when he landed in his chair to take command.

13. This day the pirates, as if previously determined, did not burn
any houses that seemed to be of good quality. They went straight to
the fort, and assailed it vigorously on two sides. They encountered
a strong resistance from the river side and in front, and some of
them were killed. On the side next the sea, the guard of the fort was
entrusted to a sergeant, named Sancho Hortiz de Agurto. He went down
to the shore, leaving the post, where he was stationed to find but
from what quarter the Chinese were coming. They were already so near
that, upon one of the Chinese meeting him, the lance of the latter
must have proved the longer weapon; for he wounded the soldier, who
was armed only with a halberd, in the neck. Either this wound or some
other obliged him to retire; and, upon his doing so, the Chinese shot
him in the back with an arquebuse, which caused his death. They assert
that this must have occurred as narrated, for he was seen to measure
his halbert against the lance of the Chinese. They found him wounded
with a lance-thrust, and the larger hole caused by the bullet was
in his breast, a proof that the bullet left his body there. But his
friends tried to say that while he was fighting with the Sangley,
they shot him in the back--which might have been so; for as the
enemy were forcing their way into the fort, they naturally met with
resistance from those defending that position. Thus according to his
friends, the mistake in leaving the palisade caused the harm. On this
account it happened that, when they forced that position, they found
there the least resistance. About eighty Chinese entered the fort
at that point, and all of them might have done so had they all been
of eq