A day or two later the Spaniards were approaching the verge of a forest. An Indian hidden behind the trees to watch their movements was observed running off at full speed to give the alarm. Next morning at daybreak they were attacked by a horde of natives who "advanced," as Benzoni relates, "with horrid howls and screams and noises with the buccinus—shells and drums—all painted red and black, adorned with feathers, and golden trinkets round their necks." "In one half of a quarter of an hour," continues the chronicler, "during which we killed and wounded a great many Indians, we made them turn their shoulders."[XI‑16] They soon returned, however, and renewed the conflict. The Spaniards, worn with toil and fasting, were quickly overpowered and all but six were slain. Gutierrez fell[XI‑17] mortally wounded, and his head, hands, and feet were afterward severed from his body and borne as trophies through the region which he had proposed to subjugate. [Sidenote: GIROLAMO BENZONI.] Benzoni stumbled upon the helmet of a dead comrade, but for which circumstance no history of the New World would ever have been produced by him. "For," says he, "the stones from the savages hailed upon it with such force that it looked as if it had been hammered by a smith." After some hair-breadth escapes on which the historian fondly lingers, he was rescued together with his five comrades by the timely arrival of Alonso de Pisa's detachment, and marching night and day the survivors made their way back to the Rio San Juan, and thence embarked for Nombre de Dios.[XI‑18] CHAPTER XII. ALVARADO'S LAST EXPEDITION. 1537-1541. THE ADELANTADO'S MATCH-MAKING VENTURE—ITS FAILURE—ALVARADO'S COMMISSION FROM THE CROWN—HE LANDS AT PUERTO DE CABALLOS—AND THENCE PROCEEDS TO IZTAPA—HIS ARMAMENT—HE SAILS FOR MEXICO—HIS DEFEAT AT NOCHISTLAN—HIS PENITENCE, DEATH, AND LAST WILL—CHARACTER OF THE CONQUEROR—COMPARISON OF TRAITS WITH THOSE OF CORTÉS—WHILE ABOVE PIZARRO HE WAS FAR BENEATH SANDOVAL—HIS DELIGHT IN BLOODSHED FOR ITS OWN SAKE—THE RESTING-PLACE AND EPITAPH—ALVARADO'S PROGENY. Of the events in Guatemala during the three years succeeding the arrival of Maldonado the chroniclers are somewhat silent. In a letter to the emperor, dated December 10, 1537, the viceroy Mendoza states that he had received from the oidor a report wherein the province is represented to be at peace and in a prosperous condition, and that other accounts had reached him representing the country to be well governed. If this were so Maldonado's character soon changed for the worse, for later we shall find in him much to his discredit. [Sidenote: THEY WILL NOT MARRY.]