Page:History of the Spanish Conquest of Yucatan and of the Itzas.pdf/193

170 me, so that I could pass over it or climb it. There was no need for the hill to be very high (and it was not) for me not to be able to climb it, since now there was left to me in all my body only the bones and the skin and the spirit which animated them. In a little while I gave up at once, without being able to take a step forward, although my wish was to go on and the Indians encouraged me. This was a thing which gave them great trouble, for they also now were reeling from weakness. I, seeing that they would be missed mote, if they died than if I did, since they had families of wife, children, mother and brother, and that I had only God, to whom I had delivered my soul and life, I made an agreement with them, that they should leave me there under a tree, and that they should try to save their lives, with the understanding that, if they got out in a short time to a settlement, they should come back to see me in a few days and to bring me some aid, for if I did not follow them, it was not from want of wish or spirit to do so, but from want of strength. They grieved much over this resolution of mine, on account of the love which they had come to have for me, and so they replied to me that they were not going to leave me, but that where I should die, they were going to die also. I (perhaps by divine inspiration) insisted that they should go on and leave me, to the point of commanding them with firmness to do so, provided that they should come to see me, whenever they found supplies, for I trusted in God that they would find me alive. With this determination of mine, they obeyed me, cutting off as they could leaves or branches of palms, and they made me a little hut in which to remain at rest.

Avendaño Left Alone. "At the same time they left me a fire lighted, and it was a prodigy for them to have lighted it, since on other occasions they had not been able to make a fire, because they lacked strength in their hands to prepare or bore the said sticks with which fire is made. They also left me half a gourd of water to cool my throat, so that it might not be closed up. Having done all this with great tenderness and with tears, they took leave of me, and I, giving them my benediction, and showing them a like tenderness, embraced them also and