As soon as we had got rid of this vast crowd, we returned most fervent thanks to the Almighty. We had, however, only lost one man, but, on the other hand, sixty of us were wounded, with all our horses. I myself carried off two wounds, one of which was on my head from the stone of a sling, and the other by an arrow piercing my ankle; but neither of them were so bad as to compel me to leave the battle, or disable me from doing duty. This, however, was the same case with the majority of my comrades; for, if a wound was not dangerous, they still continued to perform duty, as the number of those who came off whole would have been too small to make head against the enemy. We now returned to our quarters, overjoyed at our victory, and offered up fervent thanks to God. We buried our dead in one of the subterranean dwellings, that the Indians might not discover us to be mortal as well as themselves, but still continue to fancy us gods: we, therefore, heaped up a quantity of earth over the spot, that even the stench of the decomposing body might not betray the dead. The fat of the Indians, as before, served us to dress our wounds. Oh, the distress we suffered here! We had neither oil for our wounds nor salt to our food. To all this was added the misfortune of having nothing to shelter us from the keen wind, which blew across the Sierra Nevada, and made us shake again with cold. We, nevertheless, kept up our spirits, and this night we slept more soundly than on the previous one, as we had better regulated our outposts and the patrols. CHAPTER LXVI. _How we sent a message next day to the caziques of Tlascalla to bring about peace between us, and the determination they came to upon this._ In the last battle we had taken three distinguished personages prisoners. These Cortes sent with the two others whom we had previously taken, and once before despatched with a message to the caziques of Tlascalla, desiring them in our name to make peace with us, and allow us to march through their country to Mexico, as we had before requested of them. If they still refused, we would exterminate them all. It would, however, grieve us if they drove us to such extremities, as we were well inclined, and would gladly look upon them as brothers; nor should we have done thus much if they themselves had not driven us to it. Besides this, Cortes said many other kind things to gain their friendship.