ABSTRACT
The traitor (irritated by what the Portuguese said to him), and fearing the provincial, thought that it was not good policy to leave enemies in the rear, although they were prisoners, so he determined to kill them before he left the city, and thus to meet his ecclesiastical foe, a warlike churchman. It was nearly midnight, and the hour for such deeds, when he ordered one Francisco de Carrion, a mestizo, his alguazil, to go quickly with certain soldiers, and strangle the governor, and his imprisoned companions, who were in the lower apartment. This alguazil, and his men, lost no time in obeying the traitor’s wishes; they quickly got hold of some negroes, cords, and other articles necessary for perpetrating
the deed, and, descending to the lower apartment, they told the prisoners to pray to God for his mercy, and to show such contrition for their sins as became Christians, for that they were about to die.
