While these events were happening the governor was very ill in bed, and for the sake of his health chains were fastened round his feet; by his pillow a candle burned, for the prison was dark, no light being admitted, and so damp that the grass grew under his bed; he had the candle because he might want it at any moment. To crown his miseries, they had searched among the whole population for the man most evilly disposed towards him, and they found one named Hernando de Sosa, whom the governor had punished for striking an Indian chief. This man was placed on guard in the same room with him. The prison closed with two sliding doors furnished with padlocks; the officers and their partisans watched him day and night armed to the teeth; and there were upwards of one hundred and fifty of them, all paid with his property.

Notwithstanding this strict watch kept upon him, every night, or every third night, an Indian woman who brought him his supper conveyed him a letter written by one of his friends, informing him of all that happened outside his prison. They begged him to say what he wished them to do, three parts of the people being determined to die with the Indians in order to deliver him. They had feared to do this because of the threats of the officers to kill him should an attempt at a rescue be made.