g at the river; they asked him for the father visitor,
and he told them simply that he had left Butuan. They, without asking
whether the father were to pass that way, returned to their village
to inform their leader of the matter. Thus did God save the life of
His minister for the second time, thereby allowing one to see even
in so slight occurrences the height of His Providence.

262. At that time some hostile Indians began to harass the peaceful
Indians, from whom they took a quantity of their rice and maize. Dabao
offered to make a raid in order to check so insolent boldness with that
punishment, and he assured them that he would immediately return with
the heads of some men, from which result their accomplices would take
warning. He selected, then, eight robust and muscular Indians, whose
hands he bound behind their backs, but by an artifice so cunning that
they could untie themselves whenever occasion demanded. Thus did he
bring as captives those who were really Trojan horses; for, concealing
their arms, they showed only many obsequious acts of submission. The
captain ordered them to be taken to the fort where the father prior,
Fray Agustin de Santa Maria, was already waiting; and when the order
was given that the feigned captives should be set in the stocks, at
that juncture Dabao drew a weapon which he had concealed, and broke
the captain's head. The Indians untied their bonds, the rebels came
with lances from the village, and a hotly-contested battle took place
in which almost all our men lost their lives. Only the religious and
four Spanish soldiers and a corporal were left alive. It did not occur
to them, in the midst of so great confusion, to take other counsel
than to drop down from the wall. We shall leave the father prior,
Fray Agustin, for the present, and speak only of the soldiers who
opened up a road with their invincible valor by means of their arms,
in order to take refuge in the convent. But finding it already occupied
by the insurgents, who had gone ahead to despoil it, they fought there
like Spaniards, hurling themselves sword in hand on the mass of the
rebels. However, they were unable to save the post, for the convent
and the church were blazing in all parts. Thereupon it was necessary
for them to hurl themselves upon a new danger in order to return to
the redoubt, where they arrived safely at the cost of many wounds,
although they found the fort dismantled. Thence they sent the Indians
in fligh