For now as of old de Garcia feared me, now as of old he believed that I should bring his death upon him.
It was the custom of warriors in the opposing armies to send challenges to single combat, one to another, and many such duels were fought in the sight of all, safe conduct being given to the combatants and their seconds.

Upon a day, despairing of meeting him face to face in battle, I sent a challenge to de Garcia by a herald, under his false name of Sarceda.

In an hour the herald returned with this message written on paper in Spanish: 'Christian men do not fight duels with renegade heathen dogs, white worshippers of devils and eaters of human flesh.

There is but one weapon which such cannot defile, a rope, and it waits for you, Thomas Wingfield.' I tore the writing to pieces and stamped upon it in my rage, for now, to all his other crimes against me, de Garcia had added the blackest insult.

But wrath availed me nothing, for I could never come near him, though once, with ten of my Otomies, I charged into the heart of the Spanish column after him.
From that rush I alone escaped alive, the ten Otomies were sacrificed to my hate.
How shall I paint the horrors that day by day were heaped upon the doomed city?
Soon all the food was gone, and men, ay, and worse still, tender women and children, must eat such meat as swine would have turned from, striving to keep life in them for a little longer.