LEGENDS OF THE CITY OF MEXICO
and a broad and very long sword; also, when at night he went out on strange errands, he carried a great pike. Therefore, presently, people spoke of him not as Don Lope but as El Armado—and so he was called.
That he was a wicked person was known generally. He was very charitable to the poor. Every morning he went to pray in the church of San Francisco; and he remained praying there for hours at a time, kneeling upon his knees. Also, at the proper seasons, he partook of the Sacrament. Some said that through the shut windows of his house, in the night-time, they had heard the sound of his scourgings as he made penance for his sins.
In the darkness of the darkest of nights—when there was no moon, and especially when a dismal drizzling rain was falling—he would be seen to come out from his house in all his armor and go stealing away in the direction of the Plazuela de Mixcalco. He would disappear into the shadows, and not come back again until midnight had passed. Then he would be heard, in his shut house, counting his money. For a long while that would go
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