s broad and the current
swift, they were all drowned. Every day we are finding more and more
who have died from wounds and hunger, and those who have survived are
gathering in small bands and going back to their country. They found
some boats to take their goods across at the cape of San Agustin,
and carry this good news to their king--whom perchance the gain
will dispose to continue. This reenforcement was brought by Buysan,
brother of Sali and uncle of Raxa Mura, who went to get him and wished
him to attack the sargento-mayor, at the time when they cut off his
leg. The king of Terrenate yielded to him respectfully, as your Grace
may see by the letter of the chief captain of Maluco, a copy of which
is sent with this, in which he informs me of what had happened. The
troops who came were the most noble and gallant in all Terrenate, and
the commander was an old man of more than sixty years, white-haired,
with mustaches more than a span long. He was a very venerable person,
and so valiant that, after being brought down with an arquebus-shot,
so that he could not move, he raised his campilan in the air, calling
out to his troops to fight until death. They came well supplied with
women and goods, and the materials for making powder. They brought
gilded field-beds to sleep on, with cushions of silk and chairs to
sit upon, and richly worked cloths for their use. There was so much
with this and other things that the booty must have been worth six
thousand ducats; and though, as always, the soldiers took the lesser
part, yet even thus some of them are a little better off.

I am well aware that I was very fortunate on that occasion, and if
our Lord was pleased to grant me success, still fortune will change
and the enemy will have it. Not only will that which remains to me
here be lost, but even the Pintados Islands have been in great danger,
having run the risk each year of being harried by these enemies. But
though I knew that God was helping us in a time of such need, yet I
had almost lost hope of success. On the other hand, finding myself
puzzled and almost desperate at seeing that at the end of six months
there had come no reply from the lord governor, nor in any way any
intimation of his will or determination, and that it almost seemed
as if he were forgetting us, as if we were a lost people without
hope, I resolved to do what I did as one who was destitute of aid,
and who must live by his own hands. The success was such tha