injury than leaving its mark in the shape of a hole in my cassock. May God grant that by this wonderful escape I am reserved for some other and more glorious death! We all felt sure that there was no other stockade besides these two which we saw, when, at the third turn of the hill, the advance-guard came upon another, which we had not been able to see. They commenced to fight bravely from below it, but because the position of the stockade was very strong, and that of our men very cramped--hemmed in by formidable precipices, and exposed to all the guns and other weapons of the enemy (especially sompites, bacacayes, and stones)--no sooner would some of our men gain the little open place before the stockade than they would fall dead or wounded. For this reason, after having fought a good two hours, the fort could not be taken. During this time the four priests who went up the hill--Father Juan de Barrios, the Augustinian friar, the chaplain of the fleet, and I--remained at this place, confessing the wounded and encouraging the others. On the whole march, so far, I had not chosen to unfurl the standard of the holy Christ and St. Francis Xavier; but at the time of the battle, my fervor and zeal being aroused, I did what the Holy Ghost bade me, and was thus constrained to give the banner to a soldier--who at my order went on ahead, further up the hill, to guard the person of his Lordship, who had left me in order to reconnoiter the stockade from a nearer point. A ball came, which pierced the canvas of both the sacred pictures, but without touching the figures; at that time the saint was facing the stockade, and it has been positively learned (how, I know not) that that ball was intended by the evil one to kill a great personage, and the saint who stood before him saved him from it.