ly armed with pikes and swords, to attack, completely
overthrow them, and take the commander himself prisoner! He displayed
wonderful feats of courage in our attack upon the great temple of
Huitzilopochtli, before our disastrous flight from the city, though
certainly neither his courage nor ours, as it unfortunately turned out,
was of any avail. Shortly upon this, at the memorable battle of Otumpan,
where the flower of the Mexican army was drawn up against us to put us
all to the sword, it was Cortes who made the first run at the Mexican
general-in-chief who carried the imperial standard, and threw him to the
ground, and in an instant the courage of the enemy began to flag; though
it must be borne in mind he was courageously assisted by his brave
officers Alvarado, Sandoval, Oli, Ordas, Dominiguez, Lares, and Tapia,
besides other officers and soldiers who had no horses, but whose names I
will not mention: even several of Narvaez's men fought bravely on this
occasion. It was, however, Juan de Salamanca, of Ontiveros, who gave the
Mexican general the finishing stroke, and tore away the splendid penache
from his head, which he presented to Cortes. How dangerous was not our
position in Iztapalapan? Near Xochimilco the Mexicans had already
dragged him from his horse; and had it not been for our Tlascallan
auxiliaries, and the brave Christobal de Olea, of Old Castile, he would
have been carried off by the enemy. In that unfortunate combat on the
causeway, where sixty-two of our men were taken prisoners and sacrificed
to the Mexican gods, the enemy had already laid hands on our general and
wounded him in the foot; but in that perilous moment it again pleased
the Almighty that Olea should come up to his rescue, assist him on
horseback, and thus save him from a horrible death. But, alas! this
heroic deed cost Olea his own life; and now even, while I am writing
this, the figure and powerful build of Christobal de Olea comes fresh to
my memory, and my heart feels sore with grief, for we were both born in
the same spot, and he was a relative of my relations. I will not,
however, relate the further heroic deeds of the marquis del Valle, for
they are so numerous and astonishing that I should not so soon get to
the end of them. I will now show a few of his peculiarities.

He was excessively fond of gambling at cards and dice, but he never lost
his temper in playing, and he delighted in using those quaint
expressions customary with gamb