"Well, Colonel Almonte," said Ned, "since I had to be recaptured, I'm glad I fell into your hands."
"I wish I could keep you in them," he said, "but I am under the command of General Cos, and I have to rejoin the main force which he leads."
Ned understood. Cos was a man of another type. But he resolved not to anticipate trouble. Almonte again looked at him curiously, and then leaning forward said confidentially:
"Tell me, was it you who knocked our soldier down on the side of the pyramid and took his lantern? If it is true, it can't do you any harm to acknowledge it now."
"Yes," replied Ned with some pride, "it was I. I came upon him suddenly and I was as much surprised as he. I hit out on the impulse of the moment, and the blow landed in exactly the right place. I hope he was not much hurt."
"He wasn't," replied Almonte, laughing with deep unction. "He was pretty well covered with bruises and scratches, but he forgot them in the awful fright you gave him. He took you to be some demon, some mysterious Aztec god out of a far and dim past, who had smitten him with lightning, because he presumed to climb upon a sacred pyramid. But some of us who were not so credulous, perhaps because we did not have his bruises and scratches, searched all the sides and the top of the pyramid. We failed to find you and we knew that you could not get through our lines. Now, will you tell me where you were?"
His tone was so intent and eager that Ned could not keep from laughing. Besides, the boy had a certain pride in the skill, daring and resource with which he had eluded the men of Cos.
"Did you look inside the pyramid?" he asked.
"Inside it?"
"Yes, inside. There's an opening sixty or seventy feet above the ground. I took your man's lantern when he dropped it and entered. There's a stairway, leading down to a deep, square well, and there's something beyond the well, although I don't know what. I stayed in there until your army went away. Before that I had been for two or three days on top of the pyramid, where a little water palm gave up its life to save me."
Almonte regarded him with wonder.
"I am not superstitious myself—that is, not unnecessarily so," he said, "but yours must be a lucky star. After all that, you should have escaped, and your present capture must be a mere delay. You will slip from us again."
"I shall certainly try," said Ned hopefully.
"It is bound to come true," said Almonte. "All the omens point that way."
Ned smiled. Almonte, young, brilliant and generous, had made him almost feel as if he were a guest and not a prisoner. He did not discern in him that underlying strain of Spanish cruelty, which passion might bring to the surface at any moment. It might be due to his youth, or it might be due to his American education.
"We march in an hour," said Almonte. "We are to rejoin General Cos on the Vera Cruz road, but that will not occur for two or three days. Meanwhile, as the way is rough and you are pretty weak, you can ride on a burro. Sorry I can't get you a horse, but our lancers have none to spare. Still, you'll find a burro surer of foot and more comfortable over the basalt and lava."
Ned thanked him for his courtesy. He liked this cheerful Mexican better than ever. In another hour they started, turning into the Vera Cruz road, and following often the path by which great Cortez had come. Ned's burro, little but made of steel, picked the way with unerring foot and never stumbled once. He rode in the midst of the lancers, who were full that day of the Latin joy that came with the sun and the great panorama of the Mexican uplands. Now and then they sang songs of the South, sometimes Spanish and sometimes Indian, Aztec, or perhaps even Toltec. Ned felt the influence. Once or twice he joined in the air without knowing the words, and he would have been happy had it not been for his thoughts of the Texans.
The courtesy and kindliness of Almonte must not blind him to the fact that he was the bearer of a message to his own people. That message could not be more important because its outcome was life and death, and he watched all the time for a chance to escape. None occurred. The lancers were always about him, and even if there were an opening his burro, sure of foot though he might be, could not escape their strong horses. So he bided his time, for the present, and shared in the gayety of the men who rode through the crisp and brilliant southern air. All the time they ascended, and Ned saw far below him valley after valley, much the same, at the distance, as they were when Cortez and his men first gazed upon them more than three hundred years before. Yet the look of the land was always different from that to which he was used north of the Rio Grande. Here as in the great valley of Tenochtitlan it seemed ancient, old, old beyond all computation. Here and there, were ruins of which the Mexican peons knew nothing. Sometimes these ruins stood out on a bare slope, and again they were almost hidden by vegetation. In the valleys Ned saw peons at work with a crooked stick as a plow, and once or twice they passed swarthy Aztec women cooking tortillas and frijoles in the open air.
The troop could not advance very rapidly owing to the roughness of the way, and Ned learned from the talk about him that they would not overtake Cos until the evening of the following day. About twilight they encamped in a slight depression in the mountain side. No tents were set, but a large fire was built, partly of dry stems of the giant cactus. The cactus burned rapidly with a light, sparkling blaze, and left a white ash, but the heavier wood, mixed with it, made a bed of coals that glowed long in the darkness.
Ned sat beside the fire on his serape with another thrown over his shoulders, as the night was growing very chill with a sharp wind whistling down from the mountains. The kindness of his captors did not decrease, and he found a genuine pleasure in the human companionship and physical comfort. Almonte found a comfortable place, took a guitar out of a silken case, and hummed and played a love song. No American officer would have done it at such a time and place, but it seemed natural in him.
Ned could not keep from being attracted by the picture that he presented, the handsome young officer bending over his guitar, his heart in the song that he played, but ready at any instant to be the brave and wary soldier. Circumstance and place seemed to the boy so full of wild romance that he forgot, for the time, his own fate and the message that he wished to bear to those far Texans.
It was very cold that night on the heights, and, now and then, a little snow was blown about by the wind, but Ned kept warm by the fire and between the two serapes. He fell asleep to the tinkling of Almonte's guitar. They started again at earliest dawn, descended the slopes into a highway to Vera Cruz, and pushed on in the trail of Cos. Ned still rode his burro, which trotted along faithfully with the best, and he kept an eager eye for the road and all that lay along it. The silent youth had learned the value of keen observation, and he never neglected it.
Before noon Ned saw a dim, white cone rising on the eastern horizon. It was far away and misty, a thing of beauty which seemed to hang in the air above the clouds.
"Orizaba, the great mountain!" said Almonte.
Ned had seen Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihuatl, but this was a shade loftier and more beautiful than either, shooting up nearly four miles, and visible to sailors far out at sea. It grew in splendor as they approached. Great masses of oak and pine hung on its lofty sides, up the height of three miles, and above the forest rose the sharp cone, gleaming white with snow. The face of Juan Nepomuceno Almonte flushed as he gazed at it.
"It is ours, the great mountain!" he exclaimed. "And the many other magnificent mountains and the valleys and rivers of Mexico. Can you wonder, then, Edward Fulton, that we Mexicans do not wish to lose any part of our country? Texas is ours, it has always been ours, and we will not let the Texans sever it from us!"
"The Texans have not wished to do so," said Ned. "You have been kind to me, Colonel Almonte, and I do not wish to tell you anything but the truth. The Texans will fight oppression and bad faith. You do not know, the Mexicans do not know, how hard they will fight. Our charter has been violated and President Santa Anna would strip our people of arms and leave them at the mercy of savage Indians."
Almonte was about to make a passionate reply, but he checked himself suddenly and said in mild tones:
"It