68
Our Catliolic H eri.tage in Texas
Next day they all went fishing. On their return they again gave the Christians some fish. But the following morning the Indians moved camp and took the seven survivors along as slaves. They never again saw their absent comrades. 67 The food being extremely scarce, the Indians soon found it was too great a burden to feed their slaves, for which reason they unceremoniously asked five of them to transfer to an Indian tribe who lived on another inlet about six leagues further on in the direction of Panuco. This inlet was Aransas Pass, the entrance to Corpus Christi Bay. They kept Alonso del Castillo, Pedro de Valdivieso, cousin of Andres Dorantes, and Diego Huelva. Of the five who were driven out, two went to the coast where they lost their lives in the impassable marshes. In the meantime, Andres Dorantes, Diego Dorantes, and Estevanico had gone with the Indians at Cedar Bayou, who had used them as carriers of equipment and supplies for a few days and then ran them out of camp to die of hunger. "They wandered painfully some days without hope of assistance; and going thus through those marshes, naked, because the other Indians with whom they had spent the night, had stripped them of their clothes, they came upon the two dead Christians, who were of the five the Indians had previously driven out and dismissed." 68 Soon thereafter, Andres Dorantes and his companions located the tribe who had control of the other three comrades. While with them, Valdivieso told them of the fate of Asturiano, the cleric, and the young swimmer with whom the priest had earlier crossed Cedar Bayou . It was just a short distance beyond Aransas Pass that Asturiano, the last of the five clergy- men, met his end. It seems the Indians maltreated him when they learned that he wanted to escape and they pierced his arm with an arrow. Whether he died as a result of the wound and the beating which he received, will never be known. Andres Dorantes saw his cassock, his breviary, and a book of hours in the ranclio of the Indians on Cedar Bayou. 69 These same Indians killed Valdivieso a few days later, when he returned from a futile effort to escape. Not long after this they put Diego de Huelva to death because he went from one lodge to another. Thus one by one, all the survivors died until there were left only Alonso del Castillo, Andres Dorantes, Estevanico the Moor, and Cabeza de Vaca from the formidable 61 /bid., I, 20. 61 Oviedo, Vol. 3, p. 598; Davenport and Wells, Quarterly, Vol. 22, pp. 126-127. 69 Oviedo, Vol. 3, p. 599; Davenport and Wells, Vol. 22, pp. 126-127; Daven- port, Vol. 27, pp. 277-278; Barcia, I , 20.
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