“It was during these sanguinary skirmishes that his wife first began to appear on horseback at his right hand. Rendered proud and self-confident by his successes, Ruiz no longer charged at the head of his partida, but presumptuously², like a general directing the movements of an army, he remained in the rear, well mounted and motionless on an eminence³, sending out his orders. She was seen repeatedly at his side, and for a long time was mistaken for a man. There was much talk then of a mysterious white-faced chief, to whom the defeats of our troops were ascribed. She rode like an Indian woman, astride, wearing a broad-rimmed man’s hat and a dark poncho⁴. Afterwards, in the day of their greatest prosperity, this poncho was embroidered⁵ in gold, and she wore then, also, the sword of poor Don Antonio de Leyva. This veteran Chilean officer, having the misfortune to be surrounded with his small force, and running short of ammunition⁶, found his death at the hands of the Arauco Indians, the allies and auxiliaries⁷ of Gaspar Ruiz. This was the fatal affair long remembered afterwards as the ‘Massacre of the Island.’ The sword of the unhappy officer was presented to her by Peneleo, the Araucanian chief; for these Indians, struck by her aspect, the deathly pallor of her face, which no exposure to the weather seemed to affect, and her calm indifference⁸ under fire, looked upon her as a supernatural being, or at least as a witch. By this

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