Page:A history of Chile.djvu/66

 there was a youth of sixteen years among them with courage and patriotism animating his young heart. Lautaro had been captured by Valdivia sometime before, baptized and made his page. Quitting the Spanish ranks at the critical moment when his countrymen began to waver, the lad began to call to his Indian friends, reproaching them for their cowardice and exhorting them to return to the combat. Grasping a lance, he turned upon the Spaniards and shouted to his countrymen to follow him. They returned with new zeal to the fray, and charging furiously, routed the Spaniards and their Promaucian allies, only two escaping the carnage.

Seeing that the day was lost, Valdivia retired with his chaplain to pray, but his devotions were soon rudely interrupted by a party of the victors who took him prisoner and forthwith conducted him before Caupolican.

Of the chief he asked that his life might be spared, and promised in return for the boon that he would quit Chile with all the Spaniards. He begged Lautaro, his recent page, to intercede for him, and this the youth did, for he was magnanimous, as well as brave. But an old ulmen standing near, sneering at Valdivia's promises, made short work of the matter by dispatching him with his war club.

The day following, the ghostly heads of the Spaniards and Promaucians were suspended from the trees by the great meadows where the Araucanians were wont to hold their festivals and celebrate their victories ; and there for sometime the Indians held high carnival.