While Don Amador spoke, he perused the countenance and surveyed the figure of his deliverer. He was a man in the prime and midway of life, tall and long-limbed, but with a breadth of shoulders and development of muscle that proved him, as did the grasp with which he assisted the war-horse from the flood, to possess great bodily strength. His face was handsome and manly, though with rather delicate features; and a very lofty and capacious forehead shone among thin black locks, and under a velvet cap worn in a negligent manner, with a medal of a saint draggling loosely from it. His beard was black and thin, like his hair, and Amador plainly perceived through it the scar of a sword-cut between the chin and mouth. His garments were of a fine and dark cloth, without much ornament; but his _fanfarrona_, as it was called in the language of the cavaliers, was a gold chain of at least thrice the weight and bigness of the neophyte's, linked round his neck, and supporting a pendant of Christ and the Virgin; and in addition, Don Amador saw on a finger of the hand he grasped, a diamond ring of goodly size and lustre. Such was the valiant gentleman, who won the friendship of the neophyte not less by his ready good will than by his excellent appearance; although this last qualification was perhaps not displayed to advantage, inasmuch as his whole attire and equipments, as well as the skin and armour of his horse, were dripping with wet, as if both had been lately plunged into the river or exposed to all the rigour of the storm. He replied to Don Amador's courtesies with a frank and open countenance, and a laugh of good humour, as if entirely unconscious of any discomfort from his reeking condition, or of any merit in the service he had rendered. "I accept thy offers of friendship," he said, "and very heartily, senor. But I vow to thee, when I helped thee out of the stream, I thought I should have had to give thee battle the next moment, as a sworn friend of Don Panfilo, the Biscayan." "How little justice there was in that suspicion," said Amador, "you will know when I tell you, that, at this moment, next to the satisfaction of finding some opportunity to requite your true service, I know of no greater pleasure the saints could send me than a fair opportunity to cross swords with this ill-mannered general, in serious and mortal arbitrement. Know, senor, I am at this moment a captive escaped out of the hands of that most dishonourable and unworthy person, seeking my way, with my followers, under guidance of a certain conjurer called Botello to the camp of the valiant senor Don Hernan Cortes and I rejoice in this rencounter the more, because I am persuaded you are yourself a true friend of that much-respected commander."