Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 2.djvu/68

 entrance to the town, while the enemy incessantly discharged darts and arrows at us; for between them and us there was only a narrow ravine. While they were occupied in righting with us, they had not seen the five Spaniards, so our men took them suddenly from behind, stabbing and slashing at them, taking them completely by surprise, for they did not know that their own people had abandoned the pass by which the Spaniards and the Indians had crossed; so they became so frightened that they lost courage to fight, and the Spaniards killed them, till, perceiving how they had been tricked, they began to fly. Our foot soldiers were already in the town, and began to set fire to it while the enemy abandoned it; and thus escaping the latter reached the sierra although many of them perished, for the horsemen pursued and killed many.

After we discovered how to enter the town, which was about mid-day, we lodged ourselves in some houses in a garden, though we found the place almost all burnt. It was quite late when the chief and other notables, seeing they could not defend themselves in spite of their strong town, and fearing we might pursue and kill them in the hilly ground, decided to come and offer themselves as vassals of Your Majesty; I received them as such, and they promised that henceforth they would always be our friends. These Indians and the others who came to give themselves as vassals of Your Majesty, after we had burnt and destroyed their houses and property, told us that the reason they were so tardy in seeking our friendship was because they thought that they would make good their fault by first allowing us to injure them, believing that this done we would not afterwards be so angry with them. We slept that night in the town, and the next morning marched through deserted and waterless pine forests, passing through a defile, suffering much from fatigue and want of water, so that some Indians who