Seeing now our flags on the enemy's stockade, we soon, with his Lordship, crossed the river for the second time; and climbing up on the other side, I also raised my standard, that of Christ and St. Francis Xavier. We all sang the _Te Deum laudamus_; and, after his Lordship had given the name of St. Francis Xavier to the fort and had left Alférez Amesquita as its governor, with a garrison of soldiers, we advanced to the rear of a stockade which Corralat defended with its one cannon, and to the mosque. Here the Moros had rallied for the last time, trusting in what their captain-general [_condestable_] had told them, that they were not to retreat until they saw him fall. He believed, by some witchcraft or other, that our bullets could not injure him; and he had had proof of this, for once a ball had broken the bone of his leg, crippling him, but without breaking the skin or drawing blood. In this confidence, he came out with his men to defy us, but Captain Zubire at once leveled his musket at him, and sent two balls through his forehead; this was the only portion of his body uncovered, the rest of it being protected by an English shield. The wretched man fell dead on the spot, and instantly all the rest in the stockade and the mosque lost courage, left their arms, and fled with all possible speed to the woods. At this same time Don Rodrigo, marching with his detachment between the slope of the hill and the river, charged the enemy so valiantly that by force he compelled them to abandon all their ships--which, for fear of us, they had hidden two days before in a broad inlet to this same river. Here they thought the ships would be safe, because they had brought them in so quietly, and because the place was so far away from the mouth of the river.
Thus in a little more than half an hour we gained possession of all below [the hill], and we would have captured the heights above on the same day, had we had all our forces, for the Moros fled in so great fright that Corralat himself had covered his face with mud so as not to be recognized by our men. This was told us by one of his servants, a Christian, who came to us the following morning, reporting a great number of Moros wounded--especially the king of the Lake, who was suffering with a bullet-wound in the breast; he had come to celebrate some marriage, that of a cousin of his with a daughter of Corralat. From this captive, and others, we learned that Corralat had desired, in any event, to surrender to the governor, but that the Christians had not consented to this, and had persuaded him to make a defense, promising that they would fight in the front rank. This promise they fulfilled, especially the day of the assault upon the hill, for it was they who did us the most injury; but they paid the penalty of this advice, not only with the property which we took from their ships, but with their lives, which the Moros themselves took in anger at their bad advice.