For my part I fought on with a little band of men who had gathered about me, till at last the dawn broke and showed an awful sight.  The most of those who were left alive of the Spaniards and their allies had crossed the second canal upon a bridge made of the dead bodies of their fellows mixed up with a wreck of baggage, cannon, and packages of treasure.  Now the fight was raging beyond it.  A mob of Spaniards and Tlascalans were still crossing the second breach, and on these I fell with such men as were with me.  I plunged right into the heart of them, and suddenly before me I saw the face of de Garcia.  With a shout I rushed at him.  He heard my voice and knew me.  With an oath he struck at my head.  The heavy sword came down upon my helmet of painted wood, shearing away one side of it and felling me, but ere I fell I smote him on the breast with the club I carried, tumbling him to the earth.  Now half stunned and blinded I crept towards him through the press.  All that I could see was a gleam of armour in the mud.  I threw myself upon it, gripping at the wearer’s throat, and together we rolled down the side of the causeway into the shallow water at the edge of the lake.  I was uppermost, and with a fierce joy I dashed the blood from my eyes that I might see to kill my enemy caught at last.  His body was in the lake but his head lay upon the sloping bank, and my plan was to hold him beneath the water till he was drowned, for I had lost my club.

‘At length, de Garcia!’ I cried in Spanish as I shifted my grip.

‘For the love of God let me go!’ gasped a rough voice beneath me.  ’Fool, I am no Indian dog.’

Now I peered into the man’s face bewildered.  I had seized de Garcia, but the voice was not his voice, nor was the face his face, but that of a rough Spanish soldier.

‘Who are you?’ I asked, slackening my hold.  ’Where is de Garcia—­he whom you name Sarceda?’

’Sarceda?  I don’t know.  A minute ago he was on his back on the causeway.  The fellow pulled me down and rolled behind me.  Let me be I say.  I am not Sarceda, and if I were, is this a time to settle private quarrels?  I am your comrade, Bernal Diaz.  Holy Mother! who are you?  An Aztec who speaks Castilian?’

‘I am no Aztec,’ I answered.  ’I am an Englishman and I fight with the Aztecs that I may slay him whom you name Sarceda.  But with you I have no quarrel, Bernal Diaz.  Begone and escape if you can.  No, I will keep the sword with your leave.’

‘Englishman, Spaniard, Aztec, or devil,’ grunted the man as he drew himself from his bed of ooze, ’you are a good fellow, and I promise you that if I live through this, and it should ever come about that I get you by the throat, I will remember the turn you did me.  Farewell;’ and without more ado he rushed up the bank and plunged into a knot of his flying countrymen, leaving his good sword in my hand.  I strove to follow him that I might find my enemy, who once more had escaped me by craft, but my strength failed me, for de Garcia’s sword had bitten deep and I bled much.  So I must sit where I was till a canoe came and bore me back to Otomie to be nursed, and ten days went by before I could walk again.