"Walk in, senors," said Colonel Tassara, from just inside this portal, and the next moment Ned was altogether astonished.

He had been impressed, on reaching this house, that it was an old and even dingy affair, of no considerable size, but he did not yet know that the older Spanish mansions were often built with only one story and around a central courtyard. Moreover, at least in Mexico, they were apt to show few windows in front, and to be well calculated for use as a kind of small forts, if revolutionary or similar occasions should ask for thick walls, with embrasures for musketry. One glance around Senora Tassara's dining-room was enough to work a revolution in Ned's ideas relating to that establishment. It was large, high-ceilinged, and its carpetless floor was of polished mahogany. The walls and ceiling were of brilliant white stucco. Upon the former were hung several trophies of weapons and antlers of deer. In the centre, at the right, in a kind of ornamental shrine, was an ivory and ebony crucifix, which was itself a priceless work of art. The long dining-table had no cloth to conceal the fact that it was of the richest mahogany, dark with age and polished like a mirror. On the table was an abundance of fine china ware, none of it of modern manufacture, but all the more valuable for that reason. At the end nearest Ned stood a massive silver coffee-urn, beautifully molded, and it was not wonderful that he stood still a moment to stare at it, for it had taken him altogether by surprise.

Almost instantly a change came over the dark, handsome features of Senora Tassara. She smiled brightly, for Ned's undisguised admiration of that mass of silver had touched her upon a tender spot, and she now spoke to him with at least four times as much cordiality as she had shown him in the hall.

"Ah, my young friend," she said, turning gracefully toward him, "so you are pleased with my coffee-urn? No table in your city of New York can show anything like it. It is of the oldest Seville workmanship, and there are not many such remaining in all the world. It is an heirloom."

"Senor Carfora," at that moment interrupted Colonel Tassara, "I will show you something else that is worth more than any kind of silver ware. Take a good look at this!"

He stepped to a trophy of arms which hung upon the wall near him, and took from it a long, heavy sword, with a worn-looking but deeply chased gold hilt. He drew it from the sheath, gazing with evident pride at its curving blade of dull blue steel.

"I think you have never before seen a sword like that," he said. "It may have been made at Toledo, for all I know, but it is centuries old. It was won from a Moor by an ancestor of mine, at the taking of Granada, when the Moorish power was broken forever by the heroes of Spain. Who can tell? It may have come down from the days of the Cid Campeador himself."

Whoever that military gentleman may have been, Ned had no idea, but he determined to find out some day, and just now he was glad to grasp the golden hilt, and remember all that he had ever heard about the Moors. He had not at all expected to hear of them again, just after escaping from a norther in the Gulf of Mexico, but, without being aware of it, he was learning a great deal about the old Spanish-Mexican aristocracy, and why it could not easily become truly republican, even in the New World, which is beginning to grow old on its own account.

Dinner was now ready, and Ned voted it a prime good one, for it consisted mainly of chicken, with capital corn-cakes and coffee. It was a tremendous improvement upon the dinners he had been eating at sea, cooked in the peculiar style of the caboose of the Goshhawk.

One large idea was becoming firmly fixed in the acute mind of the young adventurer, and it tended to make him both watchful and silent. Not only was he in a country which was at war with his own, but he was in a land where men were apt to be more or less suspicious of each other. It was also quite the correct thing in good manners for him to say but little, and he was the better able to hear what the others were saying. Therefore, he could hardly help taking note that none of the party at the dinner-table said anything about the powder on the Goshhawk, or concerning a possible trip to be made to Oaxaca by any one there. They all appeared ready, on the other hand, to praise the patriotism, statesmanship, and military genius of that truly great man, President Paredes. They made no mention whatever of General Santa Anna, but they spoke confidently of the certainty with which Generals Ampudia and Arista were about to crush the invading gringos at the north, under Taylor. They also were sure that these first victories were to be followed by greater ones, which would be gained by the President himself, as soon as he should be able to take command of the Mexican armies in person. If any friend of his, a servant, for instance, of the Tassara family, had been listening, he would have had nothing to report which would have made any other man suppose that the rulers of Mexico had bitter, revengeful foes under that hospitable roof.

The dinner ended, and Ned was once more in his room, glad enough to get into his hammock and go to sleep. If the norther did any howling around that house, he did not hear it, but he may have missed the swing motion which a hammock obtains on board a ship at sea. His eyes closed just as he was thinking:

"This is great, but I wonder what on earth is going to happen to me to-morrow."



CHAPTER VI.

FORWARD, MARCH

The sun of the next morning arose upon a great deal of doubt and uncertainty in many places. Some of the soldiers of General Taylor's army were altogether uncertain into what bushes of the neighboring chaparral the norther had blown their tents, and they went out in search of their missing cotton duck shelters. The entire force encamped at the Rio Grande border was in the dark as to what it might next be ordered to do, and all sorts of rumors went around from regiment to regiment, as if the rumor manufacturer had gone crazy. General Taylor himself was sure of at least the one point, that he had no right to cross the muddy river in front of him and make a raid into Mexico until he should hear again from the government at Washington, and be officially informed that the war, which he was carrying on so well, had really begun. He and all his army believed that it was already going on, and they grumbled discontentedly that they were compelled to remain in camp, and watch for ranchero lancers on Texan soil, if it was legally Texan at all, until permission arrived to strike their tents and march forward.

The news of the fighting and of what were described as the great battles on the Mexican border had reached New Orleans and Key West. It was travelling northward at full speed, but it had not yet been heard by the government or by the people of the North and West. None of these had as yet so much as imagined what a telegraphic news-bringer might be, and so they could not even wish that they had one, or they would surely have done so. The uncertainties of that morning, therefore, hampered all the councils of the nation. Almost everybody believed that there would soon be a war, although a great many men were strongly opposed to the idea of having one. Taking the war for granted, however, there were doubts and differences of opinion among both military and unmilitary men as to how it was to be carried on. Some were opposed to anything more than a defence of the Rio Grande boundary-line, but these moderate persons were hooted at by the out-and-out war party, whom nothing promised to satisfy but an invasion which intended the capture of the city of Mexico. Nothing less than this, they said, would obtain the objects of the war, and secure a permanent peace at the end of it. Then, supposing such an invasion to be decided on, an important question arose as to how and where the Mexican territory might best be entered by a conquering army. Many declared that General Taylor's forces were already at the right place for pushing ahead, but the commander-in-chief, General Winfield Scott, by all odds the best general the country possessed, responded that the march proposed for Taylor was too long, too difficult, and that it was likely to result in disaster. The shorter and only practicable route, he asserted, was by way of the sea and Vera Cruz. He was also known to be politically opposed to any war whatever. Thereupon, a number of prominent men, who disagreed with him, set themselves at work to have him removed or put aside, that a commander might take his place who was not so absurdly under the influence of military science, common sense, and of the troubles which might be encountered in marching seven hundred miles or more through an enemy's country. There were, it was said, eloquent politicians, who did not know how to drill an "awkward squad," but who felt sure of their ability to beat Old Scott in such an agreeable affair as a military picnic party to the city of Mexico.

The young military scholars in the camp near Fort Brown were ignorant of all this. They were satisfied with their present commander, as well they might be, for he was a good one. They were satisfied with themselves, and were enthusiastically ready to fight anything which should be put in front of them. They were dreadfully dissatisfied with camp life, however, and especially with the fact that they and all the other raw troops of that army were forced to undergo a great deal of drill and discipline in hot weather. Perhaps, if this had not been given them, they would hardly have rendered so good an account of themselves in the severe tests of soldiership which they underwent a few months later.

The first doubt that came to Ned Crawford that morning, as his eyes opened and he began to get about half-awake, related to his hammock and to how on earth he happened to be in it. Swift memories followed then of the norther, the perilous pull ashore, the arrival at the Tassara place, and the people he had met there. He recalled also something about silver coffee-urns and Moorish warriors, but the next thing, he was out upon the floor, and his head seemed to buzz like a beehive with inquiries concerning his immediate future.

"Here I am," he said aloud. "I'm in Mexico; in Vera Cruz; at this house with Senor Zuroaga; and I don't know yet what's become of the Goshhawk. I don't really ever expect to see her again, but I hope that Captain Kemp and the sailors didn't get themselves drowned. I must see about that, first thing. Then I suppose I must see the American consul, write another letter home, see the merchants our goods were delivered to,—and what I'm to do after that I don't know."

There was a loud rap at his door just then, and in a moment more he was almost repeating that speech to Senor Zuroaga.

"Please say very little to Colonel Tassara or anybody else in this house," replied the senor, emphatically. "Get used, as soon as you can, to being called Carfora. We must make you look like a young Mexican right away. I've bought a rig which will fit you. It is well that you are so dark-complexioned. A red-haired fellow would never pass as you will. All the American residents of Vera Cruz are already under military protection, and I am glad there are so few of them, for there are said to have been two or three assassinations. Part of the mountain men who are loafing in town just now are wild Indians, as reckless and cruel as any of your Sioux warriors on a war-path. Come along to breakfast. You won't meet the ladies this time, but I believe the senora and senorita like you a little, because you had the good taste to admire their silver and china."

"Oh, that old coffee-urn!" said Ned. "Well, it's as fine as anything I ever saw, even in a jewelry window."

"Yes," laughed the senor, "but the senora wants to have the American consul killed because he told her she had better have that thing melted and made over into one of the modern patterns. She will never forgive him. Tell her again, when you have a chance, that the old-time Seville silversmiths could beat anything we have nowadays, and she will love you. I do not really believe myself that we are getting much ahead of those ancient artists. They were wonderful designers."

Ned was willing to believe that they were, and he made up his mind to praise Senora Tassara's pet urn to the best of his ability.

He was not to have an opportunity for doing so immediately. Their breakfast was ready for them in the dining-room, but they were allowed to eat it by themselves. It seemed to Ned a very good one, but several times he found himself turning away from it to stare at the silver marvel and at the weapons on the walls. There was no apparent reason for haste, but neither of them cared to linger, and before long they were out on the piazza in front, Zuroaga with his hat pulled down to his eyes and his coat collar up. Ned was at once confirmed in his previous idea that the house was anything but new, and to that he added the conviction that it was much larger than it had appeared to be in the night. He believed, too, that it must have cost a deal of money to build it long ago. He had only a moment for that calculation, however, for his next glance went out toward the gulf, and he came near to being astonished. The path which he had followed in coming up from the shore had been a steep one, and he was now standing at a place from which he had a pretty good view of the tossing water between the mainland and the castle of San Juan de Ulua. The old fortress was there, unharmed by the norther, but not in any direction, as far as his eyes could reach, was there any sign of a ship, at anchor or otherwise.

"Senor!" he exclaimed. "What has become of them? They are all gone! Do you suppose they have been wrecked?"

"Not all of them, by any means," replied the senor, but he also was searching the sea with a serious face. "As many as could lift their anchors in time to make a good offing before the norther came were sure to do so. If there were any that did not succeed, I can't say where they may have gone to just now."

"The Goshhawk—" began Ned, but the senor gripped his arm hard, while he raised his right hand and pointed up the road.

"Silence!" he commanded, in a sharp whisper. "Look! there he comes. Don't even call him by his name. Wait and hear what he has to say. He can tell us what has become of the bark. They are a used-up lot of men."

So they were, the five who now came walking slowly along from somewhere or other on the coast upon which the disastrous storm had blown.

"Captain Kemp and the crew of his life-boat," thought Ned, but he obeyed the senor at first, and was silent until the haggard-looking party arrived and came to a halt in front of him. Then, however, he lost his prudence for a moment, and anxiously inquired:

"Were any of you drowned?"

"Not any of us that are here," responded the captain, grimly. "No, nor any other of the Goshhawk men, but there are more wrecks in sight below, and I don't know how many from them got ashore. Our bark stranded this side of them, and she's gone all to pieces. We took to the life-boat in time, but we've had a hard pull of it. We went ashore through the breakers, about six miles below this, and here we are, but I don't want to ever pass such another night. I'm going on down to the consul's now, to report, and Ned had better be there as soon as he can. Then, the sooner he's out o' Vera Cruz, the better for him and all of us."

"I think so myself," said Senor Zuroaga. "Don't even stay here for breakfast. Nobody from here must come to the consul's with Senor Carfora."

"Of course not," said the captain, wearily, and away he went, although Ned felt as if he were full to bursting with the most interesting kind of questions concerning the captain's night in the life-boat and the sad fate of the swift and beautiful Goshhawk.

"Come into the house," said the senor, "and put on your Mexican rig. I have a message from Colonel Guerra that we must get away to-night. I must not bring any peril upon the Tassara family. Up to this hour no enemy knows that I was a passenger on the powder-boat, as they call it."

"All right," said Ned. "I'll write one more letter home. I couldn't get out of the city in any other way just now, and I want to see Mexico."

That idea was growing upon him rapidly, but his next errand was to the senor's own room, to put on what he called his disguise. He followed his friend to a large, handsome chamber in the further end of the house, and, as he entered it, his first thought was:

"Hullo! are they getting ready for a fight?"

In the corners of the room and leaning against the walls here and there were weapons enough to have armed half a company of militia, if the soldiers did not care what kinds of weapons they were to carry, for the guns and swords and pistols were of all patterns except those of the present day. Ned saw at least one rusty firelock, which put him in mind of pictures he had seen of the curious affairs the New England fathers carried when they went to meeting on Sunday. He had no time to examine them, however, for here were his new clothes, and he must be in them without delay. He admired each piece, as he put it on, and then one look into the senor's mirror convinced him that he was completely disguised. He had been turned into a somewhat stylish young Mexican, from his broad-brimmed straw hat to his Vera Cruz made shoes. He still wore a blue jacket, but this one was short, round-cornered, and had bright silver buttons. His new trousers were wide at the bottoms, with silver-buttoned slashes on the outsides below the knees. He had not worn suspenders on shipboard, but now his belt was of yellow leather and needlessly wide, with a bright buckle and a sword-catch on the left side. As to this matter, the senor showed him a short, straight, wide-bladed sort of cutlas, which he called a machete.

"That is to be yours," he said. "You need not carry it in town, but you will as soon as we get away. You will have pistols, too, and a gun. It won't do to go up the road to Oaxaca unarmed. Now you may make the best of your way to the consul's, and I'll stay here to finish getting ready."

He appeared to be laboring under a good deal of excitement, and so, to tell the truth, was the disguised young American. Out he went into the hall, trying hard to be entirely collected and self-possessed, but it was only to be suddenly halted. Before him stood the stately Senora Tassara, and clinging to her was the very pretty Senorita Felicia, both of them staring, open-eyed, at the change in his uniform. The senorita was of about fourteen, somewhat pale, with large, brilliant black eyes, and she was a very frank, truthful girl, for she exclaimed:

"Oh, mother, do look at him! But it does not make a Mexican of him. He's a gringo, and he would fight us if he had a chance. I want them all to be killed!"

"No, my dear," said the senora, with a pleasant laugh. "Senor Carfora will not fight us. He and his ship brought powder for Colonel Guerra and the army. I am sorry he must leave us. You must shake hands with him."

"Oh, no!" said the wilful Felicia, spitefully. "I don't want to shake hands with him. He is one of our enemies."

"No, I'm not!" stammered Ned. "But did you know that our ship was wrecked in the norther? If you had been on board of her when she went ashore, you would have been drowned. The men in the life-boat had a hard time in getting ashore. I'm glad you were at home."

"There, dear," said her mother. "That is polite. You heard what Senor Zuroaga said about the wrecks. They were terrible! Can you not say that you are glad Senor Carfora was not drowned?"

"No, mother," persisted Felicia. "I'll say I wish he had been drowned, if—if he could have swum ashore afterward. Good enough for him."

Senora Tassara laughed merrily, as she responded:

"You are a dreadfully obstinate young patriot, my darling. But you must be a little more gracious. The gringo armies will never come to Vera Cruz. They are away up north on the Rio Grande."

"Well, mother, I will a little," said the senorita, proudly. "Senor Carfora, your generals will be beaten all to pieces. You wait till you see our soldiers. You haven't anything like them. They are as brave as lions. My father is a soldier, and he is to command a regiment. I wish I were a man to go and fight."

Her eyes were flashing and she looked very warlike, but the only thing that poor Ned could think of to say just then was:

"Senora Tassara, if you are not careful, somebody will get in some day and steal your beautiful coffee-urn."

"Ah me!" sighed the senora. "This has been attempted, my young friend. Thieves have been killed, too, in trying to carry off the Tassara plate. There would be more like it, in some places, if so much had not been made plunder of and melted up in our dreadful revolutions. Some of them were only great robberies. I understand that you must go to your business now, but we shall see you again this evening."

"Good morning, Senora Tassara," said Ned, as he bowed and tried to walk backward toward the outer door. "Good morning, Senorita Tassara. You would feel very badly this morning if you had been drowned last night."

The last thing he heard, as he reached the piazza, was a ringing peal of laughter from the senora, but he believed that he had answered politely.

He knew his way to the office of the American consul, and the distance was not great in so small a town, but as he drew near it, he saw that there was a strong guard of soldiers in front of the building. They were handsomely uniformed regulars from the garrison of San Juan de Ulua, and there was cause enough for their being on duty. All up and down the street were scattered groups of sullen-looking men, talking and gesticulating. None of them carried guns, but every man of them had a knife at his belt, and not a few of them were also armed with machetes of one form or another. They would have made a decidedly dangerous mob against anything but the well-drilled and fine-looking guards who were protecting the consulate. Ned remembered what Felicia had said about her soldiers, and he did not know how very different were these disciplined regulars from the great mass of the levies which were to be encountered by the troops of the United States. He was admiring them and he was thinking of battles and generals, when one of the most ferocious-looking members of the mob came jauntily sauntering along beside him. He was a powerfully built man, almost black with natural color and sunburn. He was not exactly ragged, but he was barefooted, and his broad-brimmed sombrero was by no means new. A heavy machete hung from his belt, and he appeared to be altogether an undesirable new acquaintance. Ned looked up at him almost nervously, for he did not at all like the aspect of affairs in that street. He was thinking:

"I guess they were right about the excitement of the people. This isn't any place for fellows like me. I must get out of Vera Cruz as soon as I can. It's a good thing that I'm disguised. I must play Mexican."

At that moment a good-natured smile spread across the gloomy face of his unexpected companion, and he said, in a low tone of voice:

"Say nothing, Senor Carfora. Walk on into the consulate. I belong to General Zuroaga. There are four more of his men here. We have orders to take care of you. You are the young Englishman that brought us the powder. There was not a pound to be bought in Vera Cruz, but some of those fellows would knife you for a gringo."



Quite a useless number of queer Spanish oaths were sprinkled in among his remarks, but Ned did not mind them. He only nodded and strictly obeyed the injunction against talking, even while he was asking himself how on earth his friend, the senor, ever became a general. He concluded, for the moment, that it might be a kind of militia title, such as he had heard of in the United States. However that might be, he and his guide soon reached the door of the consulate, and he himself was promptly admitted, as if the keeper of the door had been expecting to see him. There were guards inside the house as well as in the street, and they motioned Ned on through a narrow entry-way, at the end of which was an open room. He passed on into this, and the next moment he was exclaiming:

"Hullo, Captain Kemp! I'm so glad you are here! What am I to do next?"

"Almost nothing at all," said the captain, quietly. "Just sign your papers and get away. The consul himself has gone to the city of Mexico, with United States government despatches for President Paredes, and we shall finish our business as easy as rolling off a log. You have nothing to do with the wrecking of the Goshhawk, for you weren't on board when she parted her cable. But just look at those people!"

Ned did so, for the room, a large and well-furnished office, was almost crowded with Americans of all sorts, mostly men, whose faces wore varied expressions of deep anxiety.

"What are they all here for?" asked Ned.

"Safety!" growled the captain. "And to inquire how and when they can find their way out of this city of robbers. I hear that a whole regiment is to be on guard duty to-night, and that the mob is to be put down. If I ever see your father again, I'll explain to him why I sent you away."

Before Ned could make any further remarks, he was introduced to the vice-consul, a dapper, smiling little man, who did not appear to be in the least disturbed by his unpleasant surroundings. Almost a score of papers, larger and smaller, required the signature of the young supercargo of the unfortunate Goshhawk. They were speedily signed, although without any clear idea in Ned's mind as to what they all were for, and then Captain Kemp took him by the arm and led him away into a corner of the room.

"Ned, my boy," he said, "you see how it is. You must keep away from the seacoast for awhile. After things are more settled, you can come back and get away on a British, or French, or Dutch vessel, if the port isn't too closely blockaded. Whether I shall get out alive or not, I don't know. You haven't enough money. I'll let you have a couple of hundred dollars more in Mexican gold. You'd better not let anybody suspect that you carry so much with you. This country contains too many patriots who would cut their own President's throat for a gold piece. Don't ever show more than one shiner at a time, or you may lose it all."

Ned took the two little bags that were so cautiously delivered to him, and while he was putting them away in the inner pockets of his jacket, his mind was giving him vivid pictures of the knives and machetes and their bearers, whom he had seen in the street.

"Captain," he said, "those fellows out there wouldn't wait for any gold. A silver dollar would buy one of them."

"Half a dollar," replied the captain. "Not one of them is worth a shilling. They ought all to be shot. But look here. I mustn't come to Colonel Tassara's place again. I find that he is under some kind of suspicion already, and President Paredes makes short work of men whom he suspects of plotting against him. Go! Get home!"

"That's just about what I'd like to do," said Ned to himself, as he hurried out of the consulate, but the next moment his courage began to come back to him, for here was Senor Zuroaga's ferocious-looking follower, and with him were four others, who might have been his cousins or his brothers, from their looks, for they all were Oaxaca Indians, of unmixed descent. Their tribe had faithfully served the children and grandchildren of Hernando Cortes, the Conquistador, from the day when he and his brave adventurers cut their way into the Tehuantepec valley.



CHAPTER VII.

THE LAND OF THE MONTEZUMAS

"Father Crawford, do read that newspaper! The war has begun! They are fighting great battles on the Rio Grande! Oh, how I wish you hadn't sent Ned to Mexico! He may get killed!"

She was a woman of middle age, tall, fine-looking, and she was evidently much excited. She was standing at one end of a well-set breakfast table, and was holding out a printed sheet to a gentleman who had been looking down at his plate, as if he were asking serious questions of it.

"My dear," he said, as he took the paper, "I knew it was coming, but I didn't think it would come so soon as this. I don't really see that Ned is in any danger. Captain Kemp will take care of him."

"But," she said, "the Goshhawk may be captured."

"No," replied Mr. Crawford, confidently. "She hasn't sailed across prairie to the Rio Grande. There won't be any fighting at Vera Cruz for ever so long. There can't be any on the sea, for Mexico has no navy. The Goshhawk is entirely safe, and so is Ned. It'll be a grand experience for him."

"I don't want him to have so much experience at his age," she said, anxiously. "I'd rather he'd be at home,—if there's going to be a war."

"I've often wished that I could see a war," replied her husband, as he glanced over the black-typed headings of the newspaper columns. "I've travelled a good deal in Mexico, and I wanted Ned to learn all he could of that country. He will hardly have any chance to do so now."

"He might see too much of it if he were taken prisoner," she exclaimed. "I can't bear to think of it! Oh, how I wish he were at home!"

Mr. Crawford was silent, and again he appeared to be thinking deeply. He was not a pale-faced man at any time, but now his color was visibly increasing. His face was also changing its expression, and it wore a strong reminder of the look which had come into his son Ned's countenance when the fever of Mexican exploration took hold of him. People say "like father, like son," and it may be that Ned's readiness for a trip into the interior belonged to something which had descended to him from a father who had been willing to educate his son for the southern trade by sending him to sea with Captain Kemp. The United States has had a great many commercial men of that stamp, and there was a time when almost all the navy the nation possessed was provided by the merchant patriots, who armed and sent out, or themselves commanded, its fleets of privateers. Very likely the Crawfords and a number of other American families could point back to as adventurous an ancestry as could any Spaniard whose forefathers had fought Moors or won estates for themselves in Mexico or Peru. As for Mrs. Crawford, she was hardly able to drink her coffee that morning, after reading the newspaper, and she might have been even more willing to have Ned come home if she had known what had become of the Goshhawk, and in what company he was a couple of hours after she arose from her table.

Company? That was it. He was now walking along one of the streets of Vera Cruz with a squad of men of whom she would have decidedly disapproved, but whose character her husband would have understood at sight. Ned's first acquaintance, Pablo, as he called himself, with his four comrades, made up so thoroughly Mexican a party at all points that it was in no danger of being interfered with by the mob. Every member of this had seen, often enough, the son of some wealthy landholder from the upland country attended by a sufficient number of his own retainers to keep him from being plundered, and it was well enough to let him alone. On they went, but it was by a circuitous route and a back street that they reached the Tassara place. Even then, they did not enter it by the front door, but by a path which led down to the stables in the rear of the house. No outsider would afterward be able to say that he saw that party of men march into the courtyard to be welcomed by Colonel Tassara and the mysterious personage whom Ned was trying to think of as General Zuroaga.

"He may be of more importance than I had any idea of," said Ned to himself, "and I wish I knew what was coming next."

He was not to find out immediately, for Zuroaga motioned him to go on into the house, while he himself and Tassara remained to talk with Pablo and the other machete-bearers.

Hardly was Ned three steps inside of the dwelling, when he was met by Senora Tassara, apparently in a state of much mental agitation.

"My dear young friend!" she exclaimed, "I am so glad you have escaped from them! Come in. We shall have no regular dinner to-day. You will eat your luncheon now, however. We are all busy packing up. We must set out for the country as soon as it is dark. The colonel's enemies are following him like so many wolves! Felicia, my dear, you will see that Senor Carfora is properly attended to."

The saucy senorita was standing a little behind her mother, and she now beckoned to Ned, as if she had no hostility for him whatever.

"Come right along in," she said, peremptorily. "I must eat my luncheon, too. I want to hear where you have been, and what you have been doing. Is there any more news from the war? Have your gringo generals been beaten again? Tell me all you know!"

She was evidently in the habit of being obeyed by those around her, and Ned felt decidedly obedient, but this was his first intimation that it was fully noon. Time had passed more rapidly than he had been aware of, for his mind had been too busy to take note of it. He was hungrily ready to obey, however, especially concerning the luncheon, and his first bit of news appeared to please his little hostess exceedingly.

"Not another ship is in," he told her, "and I don't believe there is going to be any war, anyhow, but I saw some of your soldiers. They were guarding the American consulate from the mob. They were splendid-looking fellows. Is your father's regiment of that kind of men?"

"Father's regiment?" she said, angrily. "That's just the difficulty now. He hasn't any soldiers. Those that he had were taken away from him. So he must go and gather some more, or President Paredes will say that he is not patriotic. They took his old regiment away from him after he had made it a real good one. Tell me about your gringo soldiers. Are there a great many of them? Do they know how to fight? I don't believe they do."

She was all on fire about the war and her father's enemies, and Ned was ready to tell her all he knew of the American army, if not a little more. At least, he described to her the elegant uniforms which were worn on parade occasions by the New York City militia regiments, feathers, flags, brass bands, and all, rather than the external appearance of any martial array that General Taylor was likely to take with him when he invaded Mexico. Felicia was especially interested in those magnificent brass bands and wished that she could have some of them taken prisoners to come and play in front of her house, but all the while they were talking he was glancing furtively around the room. This had undergone a remarkable change during his brief absence. The trophies of arms were all gone, and the wonderful Seville coffee-urn had disappeared. Perhaps it had walked away, beyond the reach of possible thieves, and with it may have gone the other silverware of the Tassara family. Senorita Felicia's quick eyes had followed his own, for she was watching him.

"Yes, Senor Carfora," she said, "it's all gone. The china is all stored away in the deep cellar. I don't believe they could find it, and if they did they could not carry it away to melt it up and make dollars of it. That's what they did with all the silver one of my aunts had, except some spoons that were hid in the stable, under the hay. One of the robbers went into the stable to hunt, too, and a good mule kicked him dead. If anybody comes to rob this house while we are gone, I wish he might be kicked by one of our mules at the hacienda. He would not steal any more."

Ned had other things to tell her, about the United States forts, troops, and ships of war, and she had stories to tell with excited vivacity that set forth sadly enough the wretchedly unsettled condition of her country, which she appeared to love so well, after all. Troubled as it was, it was her own land, and she hated its enemies.

It was a hot, oppressive day, with a promise of greater heat soon to come, and the weather itself might be a good enough reason why any family should be in a hurry to get out of the tierra caliente. As for the removal of valuable property, Ned had already learned that Vera Cruz was haunted not only by bad characters from the interior, but by desperadoes from up and down the coast and from the West India Islands. He was not near enough to hear, however, when Zuroaga remarked to his friend Tassara:

"You are right, my dear colonel. The Americans will hold the Texan border with a strong hand, but if Paredes does not promptly come to terms with them, we shall see a fleet and army at Vera Cruz before long. This is the weak point of our unhappy republic."

"I think not," replied Tassara, gloomily. "I wish it were a solid nation, as strong as the castle out yonder. Our weak point is that we are cut up into factions, and cannot make use of the strength that we really have undeveloped. As for anything else, one case of yellow fever was reported yesterday, and I am informed that his Excellency, President Paredes, talks of coming here shortly to confer with Colonel Guerra. That may mean trouble for him, and neither you nor I would wish to be brought before any such council of war as might be called together."

"It might not consist altogether of our friends," said Zuroaga. "In my case, if not in yours, it might be followed quickly by an order for a file of soldiers and a volley of musketry. I should not look for mercy from a tiger."

"On the other hand," responded the colonel, "it would be well for him to be careful just now. He will need all the strength he can obtain."

"Humph!" exclaimed Zuroaga. "He will try to leave no living, or, at least, no unimprisoned enemies behind him when he marches for the border."

It was plain that they were not to be numbered among their President's friends, whether or not they were altogether just to him. Bloody severity in putting down sedition was the long-established custom in Mexico, and one man might not be more to blame for it than another. It had been handed down from the old days of Spanish rule, and the record which had been made is not by any means pleasant reading.

When the luncheon was over, the senorita left Ned to himself, appearing to feel somewhat more friendly than at first, but still considering him as a gringo and a foreigner. She said she had some things to pack up, and he went to look after his own. These did not require much packing, and before long he had again found his way out to the courtyard and the stables. These were indeed the most interesting spots about the place, for they contained all the men, the horses, and the mules. Ned shortly concluded that here were also gathered most of the firearms and at least a dozen of the wildest kind of Mexican Indians, all ragged and all barefooted. Preparations for a journey were going forward under Senora Tassara's direction, and Ned pretty quickly understood that the men were a great deal more afraid of her than they were of her husband. He felt so himself, and he instantly got out of her way, as she told him to do, when he unwisely undertook to help her with her packing.

The horses were of several sorts and sizes, and more like them were shortly brought in. One large spring wagon and a covered carryall carriage were in good order. Both were of American manufacture, and so was the harness of the teams which were to draw them. Ned was feeling a certain degree of curiosity as to what kind of carriage was to carry him, when Senor Zuroaga beckoned him to one side and said:

"We shall be with Colonel Tassara's party only the first day. But I have been thinking. When we were on the Goshhawk, you told me that you had never ridden a horse in your life——"

"Why, I'm a city boy," interrupted Ned. "There isn't any horseback riding done there. I'd rather go on wheels."

"Of course you would," laughed Zuroaga. "But there won't be any use for wheels on some of the roads I am to follow. I've picked you out a pony that you can manage, though, and you will soon learn. You will have to be a horseman if you are to travel in Mexico."

"So father used to tell me," said Ned. "He can ride anything. Which of these is my horse? They all look skittish——"

"Neither of these would do for you," replied the senor. "But listen to me sharply. Twice you have called me general. Don't do it again until we are beyond the mountains. I'm only a plain senor in all this region of the country. I only hope that some men in Vera Cruz do not already know that I am here. If they did, I am afraid I should not get out so easily. This is your horse. He is a good one."

Hitched to a post near the wall was a fat, undersized animal, black as jet, and with more mane and tail than was at all reasonable. He carried a Mexican saddle with wooden stirrups and a tremendous curb-bit bridle. In front of the saddle were pistol holsters, and behind it hung an ammunition case, as if Ned were about to become a trooper. He went to examine the holsters, and found that each of them contained a large horse-pistol with a flintlock. He also found powder and bullets in the case, and he wondered whether or not he would ever be able to shoot anybody with one of those heavy, long-barrelled things without having something to rest it on.

"I practised for an hour once in a pistol-gallery," he remarked, "but it wasn't with anything like that."

"You didn't hit centre even then, eh?" laughed the senor. "Well, not many men can do much with them, but they are better than nothing. They are too heavy for a hand like yours. Here is your machete. Put it on."

Ned felt a queer tingle all over him, as he took the weapon and hitched it at his belt. Then he drew it from the sheath and looked at it, swinging it up and down to feel its weight. It was a straight, one-edged blade, with a sharp point, and a brass basket hilt, and he remarked:

"Senor Zuroaga, I could hit with that, I guess."

His face had flushed fiery red, and it could be seen, from his handling of the machete, that his muscles were unusually strong for his size and age. The senor nodded his approbation, as he remarked:

"I think you will do. There is fight in you, but I hope we shall have no fighting to do just now. I shall try to find a safe road home."

"A fellow could cut down bushes with this thing," said Ned.

"That's exactly what our rancheros use them for," replied the senor. "They will do almost anything with a machete. They will cut their way through thick chaparral, kill and cut up beef cattle, split wood, fight men or animals, and on the whole it's about the most useful tool there is in a Mexican camp or hacienda."

"What's that?" asked Ned.

"Any kind of farm with a house on it," said the senor. "You may have to learn all about haciendas before you get home."

"Just what I'd like to do," said Ned. "I'll learn how to ride, too. How soon are we to set out?"

"Not till after dark," said the senor. "But you need not be in any hurry to get into the saddle. You will have quite enough of it before you get out of it again. There is a long ride before us to-night."

"I'm ready," replied Ned, but nevertheless he looked at that Mexican saddle with doubtful eyes, as if he were thinking that it might possibly prove to be a place of trial for a beginner.

At that very hour there were several gentlemen in uniform closeted with Colonel Guerra in one of the rooms of the Castle of San Juan de Ulua. The colonel appeared to have been giving them a detailed report of the condition of the fortress and of its means for defence, whether or not he had stated exactly the amount of the ammunition brought him by the ill-fated Goshhawk. Other subjects of conversation must now have come up, however, for one of them arose with great dignity of manner, remarking:

"My dear colonel, I am glad that I shall be able to make so encouraging a report to his Excellency. As for Colonel Tassara, we shall serve our warrant upon him some time to-morrow. We are informed that, beyond a doubt, the traitor Zuroaga intends to return from Europe shortly. As sure as he does, he will be engaged in dangerous intrigues against the existing order of things, and the good of the country requires that he shall be brought to justice before he can put any of his nefarious plans in operation. At the same time, we are assured that the invaders upon the Rio Grande will soon be defeated yet more thoroughly."

All the rest had arisen while he was speaking, and one of them, a fat, short man in a brilliant uniform, added, enthusiastically:

"We feel that we can rely upon you, Colonel Guerra. We pity the gringos if they should attempt to beleaguer this impregnable fortress. For my own part, I believe that Colonel Tassara's court martial can have but one result. His disobedience must be paid for with his life. All conspirators like Zuroaga should be shot as soon as they are captured. This is not a time, my friends, for undue leniency."

"Gentlemen," responded Colonel Guerra with graceful courtesy, "I bid you all a brief farewell with sincere regret. Your visit has given me unmixed satisfaction. Do not forget that all of you are to dine with me to-morrow. From my very heart I can echo your noble sentiments of valor and patriotism and of devotion to our beloved commander-in-chief, his heroic Excellency, President Paredes."

Then followed smiles and handshakings of mutual confidence all around, and the visiting officers took their departure. Hardly had the door closed behind them, however, before Colonel Guerra again sat down, hoarsely muttering between his set teeth:

"The snake-hearted villains! What they really hoped for was to find the fort and garrison in bad condition and unprovided, so that they might ruin me. They want my disgrace and removal, to make room for one of them. I don't believe they will catch either Tassara or Zuroaga this time. The colonel will soon raise his new regiment, and my old friend will be down in Oaxaca in safety, waiting for the hour that is to come. Paredes would give something to see my last letter from Santa Anna."

So there were many plots and counterplots, and the politest men might not be always what they seemed.



CHAPTER VIII.

OUT OF THE TIERRA CALIENTE

Those were days of great commotion in the Congress of the United States. The whole nation, South as well as North, was divided in opinion as to the righteousness and expediency of the war with Mexico. There were two great parties, both of which have long since passed away, for the question of the annexation of Texas is no longer before the people, and all this was more than half a century ago. One of the parties called itself "Whig," but its enemies described its members as "Coons," in the habit of roosting up a tree out of reach. The other party called itself "Democratic," while its opponents lampooned its members as "Loco-focos," comparing them to the blue-headed sulphur matches of that name, which were largely manufactured and did not burn very well. Party feeling ran high, and the debates in Congress were red-hot. The Democratic President, James K. Polk, was a man of far greater ability and statesmanship than his party enemies were willing to give him credit for, and he was supported by a brilliant array of politicians. On the other hand, the Whig party contained a number of our most distinguished statesmen, and, curiously enough, most of the generals of the army, including Winfield Scott and Zachary Taylor, were well-known Whigs. It was not altogether unnatural, therefore, that the Democratic party in power should wish to put the command of any army preparing for the invasion of Mexico into the hands of officers who were in favor of the war which they were to carry on. Questions like this, and some others relating to the unprepared condition of the American army for so tremendous an undertaking, were responsible for the fact that there was a long delay in all military operations, even after the hard and successful fighting done by General Taylor's forces at the Rio Grande.

American cruisers were tacking to and fro over the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, without any especial errand of which their commanders were aware. Regiments of eager volunteers were forming in several of the States, and were trying hard to discover officers who knew how to drill and handle them. The politicians were everywhere calling each other harder and harder names. Not one soul in all the United States, however, knew anything of a party of mounted men, a carriage, and a spring-wagon, which quietly made its way out of the city of Vera Cruz, not long after sunset, one sultry and lazy evening. At the head of this cavalcade rode two men, who sat upon their spirited horses as if they were at home in the saddle. At their right, however, was a young fellow on a black pony who was entirely satisfied with the fact that the beast under him did not seem to have any spirit at all. He was at that moment steadying his feet in the stirrups, and remarking to himself:

"I'm glad none of them saw me mount him. I got upon a high box first, and even then my machete was tangled with my legs, and I all but fell over him. I'll get the senor to show me how, or I'll be laughed at by the men."

He was doing fairly well at present, for the road went up a hill, and the night was not one for foolishly fast travelling. He could listen all the better, and one of his companions was saying to the other:

"My dear Zuroaga, we have gained four miles. Every one of them is worth something handsome to you and me. In my opinion, we did not get away a moment too soon to save our necks."

"Not one minute!" replied the other, with strong emphasis. "Not even if Guerra can succeed in gaining for us the best part of another day, as he believed he could. Perhaps our best chance, after all, is that he has only one company of lancers, and that any officer sent with it might have instructions which would take him by another road than this."

"The inspector-general had with him an escort of his own," said Tassara. "If he should send those fellows, they would be likely to know how to find us. They are not under the orders of Guerra."

"If," exclaimed Zuroaga, fiercely, "they do not overtake us until after the middle of our second day out, I believe they would be unlucky to try to arrest us. I hope they will be wise, and not tire out their horses with too much haste. I feel as if I could shoot pretty straight if I should see them coming within range."

"So could I," replied Tassara.

The road which they were then following ran between cultivated lands on either side. It was not tree-shadowed, and, as Ned looked back, the moonlight showed him something that made him think rapidly. Additional horsemen had joined them after they had left the city behind them, and it occurred to him that arrangements had been made beforehand for something like a small war. There were not less than twenty armed men, besides himself and the pair who were with him. For some reason or other, moreover, the wagon, which was drawn by four mules, and the carriage, drawn by a pair of fine animals of the same sort, were driven on well in advance. It appeared, therefore, as if no danger was expected to meet them from the opposite direction, and that Senora Tassara and her daughter were fairly well protected from any peril which might come after them along the road from Vera Cruz. The next thing that struck Ned, little as he knew about war, was that these horsemen were riding two and two, not in a straggling procession, but in as perfect order as if they had been trained cavalry. If he had known a little more, he would have declared:

"That is just what they are."

He might not also have known that all but six of them were from the Tassara estates, and that the odd half-dozen were lifelong servants of the proscribed descendant of Hernando Cortes. If he could have understood those men, he might also have comprehended one important feature of the tangled politics of Mexico, and why ambitious military men were every now and then able to set up for themselves, and defy the central government until it could manage to capture them, and have them shot as rebels. Wiser men than he, looking at the matter from the outside, might also have understood how greatly it was to the credit of President Paredes that he was making so good a stand against the power of the United States while hampered by so many difficulties. Ned was no politician at all, and it was a mere impulse, or a tired feeling, which led him to pull in his pony and let the men catch up with him, so that he might chat with them, one after another, and get acquainted. He found that they were under no orders not to talk. On the contrary, every man of them seemed to know that Ned had come home from the school which he had been attending in England, and that he had been instrumental in procuring powder and bullets for them and for the Mexican army. They were full of patriotism of a peculiar kind. It would have made them fight gringos or any other foreigners to-day, and to-morrow to fight as readily in any causeless revolution which their local leaders might see fit to set going. They were eager for all the news Ned could give them, and he was soon on good terms with them, for he took pains not to let them know how uncomfortable he felt in that saddle. They surely would have despised any young Mexican who had forgotten how to ride while he was travelling in Europe.

Hour after hour went by, and on every level stretch of road the wheeled vehicles were driven at a moderate trot. The horses of what Ned called the cavalry also trotted occasionally, but it was well for him that his pony did not seem to know how. Whenever he was asked to go faster, he struck into a rocking canter, which was as easy and about as lazy as a cradle, so that his rider received hardly any shaking, and was able to keep both his seat and his stirrups. Brief halts for rest were made now and then. Bridges were crossed which Ned understood were over small branches of the Blanco River, but they were still in the lowlands when, at about midnight, the little column wheeled out of the road and went on for a hundred yards or more into a magnificent forest, where the moonlight came down among the trees to show how old and large they were.

"Halt! Dismount!" came sharply from Colonel Tassara. "It is twelve o'clock. We have made over twenty miles. We will camp here until daylight. Pablo, put up the tents."

Every rider but Ned was down on his feet in a twinkling, but he remained upon his pony's back as still as a statue. He saw a white tent leave the top of the baggage in the wagon and set itself up, as if by magic. Another and another followed, and he said to himself:

"They are little picnic tents. One is for the senora and Felicia; one for the colonel; and one for Senor Zuroaga. Not any for me or for the men. Oh, dear! How shall I ever get down? I can't move my legs. If I can't, I shall have to go to sleep in the saddle!"

That was just what he might have done if it had not been for his kind and thoughtful friend, the general,—if he was one,—for Zuroaga now came to the side of the pony to inquire, with a merry laugh:

"How are you now, my boy? I knew how it would be. Tired out? Stiff with so long a ride? Lean over this way and I'll help you down. Come!"

Ned leaned over and tried to pull his feet out of the stirrups. They did come out somehow, and then he made an extra effort not to fall asleep with his head on the general's shoulder.

"Used up completely!" exclaimed Zuroaga. "Can you walk? Stretch your legs. Kick. It's your first long ride? You'll soon get used to it. There! Now I'll put you into my tent, but we must be on the march again by six o'clock in the morning. You can sleep till breakfast."

"I can walk, thank you," responded poor Ned, and he did so, after a lame and awkward fashion, but he was glad to reach the tent. "It's big enough for two," he said, as he crawled in.

"Is it?" said the general. "Bah! I do not use one half the time. I am a soldier and a hunter, and I prefer to bivouac in such weather as this. I must be on the lookout, too, to-night. Crawl in and go to sleep."

Ned was already in. Down he went upon a blanket, without even unbuckling his machete, and that was the last that he knew that night of the camp or of anybody in it. Probably, nothing less than the report of a cannon fired over that tent would have aroused him to go for his horse-pistols or draw his Mexican sabre.

Senora Tassara and her daughter had disappeared immediately, and they, also, must have been wearied with their long, hot journey, but all the rest of the party were old campaigners, and they were ready to take care of the horses and eat cold rations, for no fires were kindled.

A few minutes later, if Ned had been awake instead of sleeping so soundly, he might have heard what two men were saying, in half-whispers, close to the door of his tent.

"Colonel," said Zuroaga, "we are well-hidden in here. The bushes are very thick along the edge of the road."

"Hark!" interrupted Tassara. "Do you hear that? There they are!"

"I hear them," replied the general. "It may be so. If it is, they have followed us well. But there cannot be more than half a dozen of them. It is not any mere squad like that that we need be afraid of."

"This may be only an advance party, I think," said his friend, thoughtfully. "A larger force may be on our trail before to-morrow night. But they must not take us. They might merely arrest me, to have me shot at Vera Cruz, but they would cut down you and poor young Carfora at once. He is an American, and they would show him no mercy."

There had been a sound of horse hoofs on the road, and it had gone by, but before Zuroaga could make any response to so gloomy a prophecy, his own man, Pablo, stood before him. Pablo had been running fast, but he had breath enough left to say, quite coolly and not loudly:

"Lancers, general. Officer and four men. They have been running their horses, and they won't travel far to-morrow. I was in the bushes."

"All right, Pablo," said Zuroaga. "It was kind of Colonel Guerra to order them to use up their horses. We shall not hear of that squad again. Put Andrea on watch, and go to sleep. Our first danger is over."

Pablo bowed and turned away without another word, and Zuroaga resumed his conference with Tassara, for those two were brave men, and were well-accustomed to the peril-haunted lives they were leading.

"Colonel," he said, "it is evident that my young friend Carfora must go with you. He is not fit for a swift ride of three hundred miles. Besides, he must have any chance which may happen to turn up for getting home. Will you take care of him? He is a fine young fellow, but he cannot ride."

Therefore the pony and that saddle had done something good for Ned, and Colonel Tassara cheerfully responded:

"With great pleasure, my dear general. I shall be glad to make American friends. I may need them. He will be safe enough with me, but I fear it will be a long time before he can get out of Mexico. As for me, I shall meet more than a hundred of my own men at Orizaba, ready to escort me across the sierra into my own State of Puebla. After that, my reputation for loyalty will soon be reestablished by raising my new regiment. I think, however, that it will not march into the city of Mexico until his Excellency President Paredes has set out for the Rio Grande, or as far north as the luck of this war will permit him to travel. Very possibly, he may be hindered by the gringos before he reaches the border. Carfora will remain with me until then. You are right. He would not be safe anywhere else. As for yourself, you must push on."

"I think," said Zuroaga, "that I shall be almost safe after I am a few miles beyond Teotitlan. I may have a fight or two on the way. Carfora must not be killed in any skirmish of that kind. You will not see me again, dead or alive, until a week or two after the Americans have taken the city of Mexico, as in my opinion they surely will. I shall be there then, with five hundred lancers, to uphold the new government which will take the place of the bloody dictatorship of Paredes, unless the new affair is to be Santa Anna. In any event, I shall be able to help you, and I will."

"You are a gloomy prophet," responded Tassara, "but you are an old student of military operations. Do you really think the Americans will capture our capital? It will be well defended."

"Bravely enough, but not well," replied Zuroaga. "We have not one scientific, thoroughly educated engineer officer fit to take charge of the defences against, for instance, General Scott. Not even Santa Anna himself, with all his ability, is a general capable of checking the invaders after they have taken Vera Cruz, and that they will do. He is a scheming politician rather than a military genius. He and Paredes and some others whom you and I could name must be whipped out of power before we can put up an entirely new government, better than any we have ever had yet. What do you think about it?"

"Think?" exclaimed Tassara, angrily. "I think it will be after you and I are dead and buried before this miserable half-republic, half-oligarchy, will be blessed with a solid government like that of the United States."

"And that, too, might get into hot water," muttered his friend, but neither of the two political prophets appeared to have much more to say. They separated, as if each might have something else to employ him, and shortly all the night camp in the grand old forest seemed to be asleep.

The remaining hours of darkness passed silently, and the sun arose with a promise of another hot day. Small fires were kindled for coffee-making, but the preparations for breakfast were hurried. Before six o'clock the mules were harnessed, the horses were saddled, and all things were made ready for a diligent push southward. It had been a difficult business to get Ned Crawford out of his tent, but here he was, trying his best to move his legs as if they belonged to him. His coffee and corn-cakes did a great deal for him, and he made out to pretend to help Pablo in getting the fat pony ready for the road. Then, however, he was willing to see Pablo walk away, and he bravely led the pony to the side of what may have been an old and apparently abandoned ant-hill.

"I can get on board," he said, as if his patient quadruped had been the Goshhawk. "I saw how some of them mounted. You put your left foot into the stirrup, and then you make a kind of spring into the saddle. If my knees will bend for me, I can do it without anybody's help."

It was the ant-hill that helped him, for he did not make any spring. After his foot was in the stirrup, he made a tremendous effort, and he arose slowly, painfully to the level of the pony's back. Then his right leg went over, and he was actually there, hunting a little nervously for the other stirrup, with his machete away around behind him.

"Glad you have done it!" exclaimed a decidedly humorous voice near the pony's head. "We are all ready to be off now. Before long, you will be able to mount as the rancheros do, without touching the stirrup. But then, I believe that most of them were born on horseback."

They also appeared to be able to do pretty well without much sleep, for Ned could not see that they showed any signs of fatigue. The camping-place was speedily left behind them, but it was no longer a night journey. Ned was almost astonished, now that the darkness was gone, to discover that this was by no means a wild, unsettled country. Not only were there many farms, with more or less well-built houses, but the cavalcade began to meet other wayfarers,—men and women,—on foot and on horseback, and hardly any of them were willing to be passed without obtaining the latest news from Vera Cruz and from the war.

"I guess they need it," thought Ned. "The general says there are no newspapers taken down here, and that, if there were, not one person in five could read them. They seem a real good-natured lot, though."

So they were, as much so as any other people in the world, and they were as capable of being developed and educated to better things. As to this being a new country, it came slowly back into Ned's mind that there had been a great and populous empire here at a time when the island upon which the city of New York was afterward built was a bushy wilderness, occupied by half-naked savages, who were ready to sell it for a few dollars' worth of kettles and beads.

"I guess I'm beginning to wake up," thought Ned. "When the Goshhawk was lying in the Bay of Vera Cruz, I was too busy to see anything. No, I wasn't. I did stare at the Orizaba mountain peak, and they told me it is over seventeen thousand feet high. First mountain I ever saw that could keep on snow and ice in such weather as this. I don't want to live up there in winter. Well! Now I've seen some of the biggest trees I ever did see. I wonder if any of them were here when the Spaniards came in. I guess they were, some of them."

He was really beginning to see something of Mexico, and it almost made him forget the hardness of that unpleasant saddle. At the end of another mile, he was saying to himself:

"That field yonder is tobacco, is it? The one we just passed was sugar-cane, and Pablo said the plantation across the road was almost all coffee. He says that further on he will show me orange groves, bananas, and that sort of thing. But what on earth are grenaditas and mangoes? They'll be something new to me, and I want to find out how they taste."

Nothing at all of a military or otherwise of an apparently dangerous character had been encountered by the fugitive travellers when, at about the middle of the forenoon, they came to a parting of the ways. A seemingly well-travelled road went off to the left, or southward, while the one they were on turned more to the right and climbed a hill, as if it were making a further effort to get out of the tierra caliente. A great many things had been explained to Ned, as they rode along, and he was not surprised, therefore, when Senor Zuroaga said to him:

"My young friend, this is the place I told you of. We must part here. You and your pony will go on with Colonel Tassara, and I will take my chances for reaching my place of refuge in Oaxaca. It is not a very good chance, but I must make the best of it that I can. Take good care of yourself. I have already said good-by to the senora and the senorita. I think they will soon be out of danger."

Ned was really grateful, and he tried to say so, but all he could think of just then was:

"General Zuroaga, I do hope you'll get through all right. I hope I shall see you again safe and sound."

"You never will," said Zuroaga, as he wheeled his horse, "unless I get out of this Cordoba road. It is a kind of military highway, and I might meet my enemies at any minute—too many of them."

"Good-by!" shouted Ned, and the general, who was still a great mystery to him, dashed away at a gallop, followed by Pablo and the wild riders from the Oaxaca ranches.

The cavalcade had hardly paused, and it now went on up the long, steep slope to the right. Not many minutes later, it was on high enough ground to look down upon the road which had been taken by Zuroaga. Ned was not looking in that direction, but at some snow-capped mountains in the distance, northward, and he was saying to himself:

"So that is the Sierra Madre, is it? This country has more and higher mountains in it— Hullo! What's that? Is she hurt?"

His change of utterance into an anxious exclamation was produced by a piercing scream from the carriage, and that was followed by the excited voice of Senora Tassara calling out:

"Husband! The general is attacked! Look! Hear the firing!"

"O father! Can we not help him?" gasped Senorita Felicia.

Her mother was holding to her eyes with trembling hands what Ned took for an opera-glass, and he wished that he had one, although he could make out that something like a skirmish was taking place on the other road. It was too far to more than barely catch the dull reports of what seemed to be a number of rapidly fired pistol-shots.

"They are fighting!" he exclaimed. "I wish I was there to help him! He may need more men. I could shoot!"

Whether he could or not, he was almost unconsciously unbuckling the holster of one of his horse-pistols, when the senora spoke again.

"Santa Maria!" she exclaimed. "The dear general! They are too many for him. Madre de Dios! Our good friend will be killed!"

"Give me the glass, my dear," said her husband. "Your hands are not steady enough. I will tell you how it is."

"Oh, do!" she whispered, hoarsely, as she handed it to him. "They are lancers in uniform. Oh, me! This is dreadful! And they may follow us, too."

Colonel Tassara took the glass with apparently perfect coolness, and Ned took note that it did not tremble at all, as he aimed it at the distant skirmish. It was a number of seconds, however, before he reported:

"Hurrah! The general rides on, and he rides well. I feel sure that he is not badly wounded, if at all. He has now but three men with him. There are riderless horses. There are men on the ground. There are four only that are riding back toward the Cordoba road. Thank God! The general has made good his escape from that party of unlucky lancers. He is a fighter!"

Then he lowered the glass to turn and shout fiercely to his own men:

"Forward! We must reach Orizaba before the news of this skirmish gets there, if we kill all our horses doing it. Push on!"



CHAPTER IX.

LEAVING THE HACIENDA

It was near the close of a bright summer day, and a deeply interested company had gathered in the dining-room of the Crawford home in New York. Dinner was on the table, but nobody had yet sat down. The number of young persons present suggested that Ned must have older brothers and sisters.

"Father Crawford," exclaimed one of the grown-up young men, "what is this about another letter from Edward? I came over to hear the news."

"Letter?" said Mr. Crawford. "I should say so! I guess I'd better read it aloud. It was a long time getting out and coming around by way of England. There are all sorts of delays in war-time. It is the last of three that he wrote before escaping into the interior of Mexico with his new friends. I am glad that he did go with them, though, and there must be other letters on the way. We shall hear from him again pretty soon."

They all were silent then, and he read the letter through, with now and then a few words of explanation, but Mrs. Crawford had evidently read it before, and all she could say now was:

"Oh, dear! I don't like it! I wish he had come home!"

"It's all right, mother," said Mr. Crawford, "for I have something more to tell. Captain Kemp is here, and, from what he says, it is plain that it would not have done for Ned to have remained anywhere on the coast. He will be safe where he is, and he will learn a great deal. I would not have him miss it for anything. What's pretty good, too, we have been paid all our insurance money for the loss of the Goshhawk, and our firm has been given a contract to furnish supplies for the army. I shall be down on the gulf before long myself, in charge of a supply ship, and I can make inquiries about Ned. He will turn up all right."

Everybody appeared to be encouraged except Ned's mother, and it was a pity she could not have seen how well he was looking at that very time. If, for instance, she had possessed a telescope which would have reached so far, she might have seen a fine, large bay horse reined in to a standstill in front of a modern-appearing country-house, well built of a nearly white kind of limestone. Around this residence was a wide-spreading lawn, with vines, shrubbery, flowers, and other evidences of wealth and refinement. The rider of the horse appeared to sit him easily, and he was a picture of health and high spirits, but for an expression of discontent that was upon his sunburned face.

"This is all very beautiful," he said, as he glanced around him, "but I wish I were out of it. I want to hear from home. They must have my letters by this time, but they couldn't guess where I am now."

He was silent for a moment, and the horse curveted gracefully under him, as if in doubt whether to gallop away again, or to ask his rider to get off.

"Well!" said Ned, with a pull on the rein. "It seems like a long, wonderful dream since I saw General Zuroaga ride away from us at the cross-roads. What a skirmish that was! Then we made our way through the mountains, and came here, and hasn't it been a curious kind of life ever since? I've learned how to ride like a Mexican. I've seen all there is to see for miles and miles around this place. I've seen lots of old ruins, all that's left of ancient houses and temples and altars. I believe the senora likes nothing better than to tell me yarns about the Montezuma times and about her ancestors in Spain. That's a great country. I think I'll go over there, some day, and see Granada and the Alhambra and the old castles and the Spanish people. I like the Mexicans first-rate, all that I have seen of them. They will be a splendid nation one of these days, but they're awfully ignorant now. Why, every one in these parts believes that our army is all the while being whipped all to pieces by theirs, and I can't exactly swallow that. I'd like to know just what is really going on. I'm all in the dark."

"Senor Carfora!" called out a clear, ringing voice.

He turned in the saddle, from seeming to gaze at the distant forest, and there, in the piazza which ran all along the front of the house, stood Senorita Felicia, her usually pale face flushed with excitement.

"We have a letter from father!" she shouted. "He has completed his regiment, and he is to command it. President Paredes is going north, to drive the gringos out of Mexico, and father may have to go with him. He says it is time for us to move to the city of Mexico. We are to live with my aunt, Mercedes Paez, and you are to come with us. Is it not grand?"

"It is just what I was wishing for!" exclaimed Ned. "I'd give almost anything to see that city, after what your mother has told me."

"Oh," said Felicia, "she was born there, and she'll make you see all there is of it. But we were all ready, you know, and we are to set out early to-morrow morning."

"Hurrah!" responded Ned. "But I'd like to hear from General Zuroaga. I wish I knew whether or not he was much hurt in that fight in the road."

"Father does not believe he was," said Felicia. "Sometimes I almost think he knows all about it. But there are some things he won't speak of, and General Zuroaga is one of them."

Ned sprang to the ground, and a barefooted "peon" servant took charge of his horse. It was not at all the kind of dismounting he had performed at the camp in the woods on the road from Vera Cruz. Neither did he now have any machete dangling from his belt, to entangle himself with, and there were no pistol holsters in front of the saddle. He went on into the house with the senorita, and in a moment more he was hearing additional news from her mother. Senora Tassara was as stately as ever, but it was apparent that she had taken a liking to her young American guest, whether it was on account of his deep interest in her old stories, or otherwise. It may have been, in part, that company was a good thing to have in a somewhat lonely country-house, for she could not have thought of associating with Mexican neighbors of a social rank lower than her own. Was she not descended from Spanish grandees, and were they not, for the greater part, representatives of the mere Aztecs and Toltecs, whom her forefathers had conquered? It was that very feeling, however, which in the minds of such men as Paredes and similar leaders was standing in the way of every effort to construct a genuine republic out of the people of the half-civilized States of Mexico.

Ned's next questions related to the war, and he inquired how many more great battles Colonel Tassara had reported.

"Battles?" exclaimed Senora Tassara. "Why, there has not been one fought since Resaca de la Palma. But he says that General Ampudia sends word that the American army is about to advance upon him. They will attack him at the city of Monterey, and they never can take so strong a place as that is. He is ready for them, but President Paredes believes that it is time for him to take command of the army in person."

It certainly was so. The Mexican President was a cunning politician, and he had been by no means an unsuccessful general. He was well aware that it would not be wise for him to now allow too many victories to be won by any other Mexican. It might interfere with his own popularity. On the other hand, if General Ampudia should be defeated, as he was quite likely to be, then it was good policy for the commander-in-chief, the President, to be promptly on hand with a larger force, to overwhelm the invaders who had ruined Ampudia. Therefore, it might be said that the Americans had the tangled factions and corrupt politics of Mexico working for them very effectively.

Ned Crawford already knew much about the condition of military and political affairs, but he was not thinking of them that evening. It was a great deal pleasanter to sit and talk with Senorita Felicia about the city of Mexico and others of the historical places of the ancient land of Anahuac. She still could remind him, now and then, that she hated all kinds of gringos, but at all events she was willing to treat one of them fairly well. He, on his part, had formed a favorable opinion of some Mexicans, but he was as firm as ever in his belief that their army could never drive the Americans out of Texas.

There was one place which was even busier and more full of the excitement of getting ready for a new movement than was the Tassara hacienda. It was among the scattered camps of General Taylor's army, near Matamoras, at the mouth of the Rio Grande. Reinforcements had made the army more than double its former size, but it was understood that it was still of only half the numbers of the force it was soon to meet, under General Ampudia. It was a curious fact, however, that all of General Taylor's military scholars were entirely satisfied with that computation, and considered that any other arrangement would have been unfair, as they really outnumbered their opponents when these were only two to one. What was more, they were willing to give them the advantage of fighting behind strong fortifications, for they knew that they were soon to attack the mountain city of Monterey. Part of what was now genuinely an invading army was to go up the river in boats for some distance. The other part was to go overland, and it was an open question which of them would suffer the more from the hot summer sun. It was to be anything but a picnic, for here were nearly seven thousand Americans of all sorts, who were obtaining their first experiences of what war might really be, if made in any manner whatever in the sultriest kind of southern weather. Much more agreeable for them might have been a march across the central table-lands beyond, at an elevation of four thousand feet above the sea level and the tierra caliente.

That was precisely the kind of pleasant journey that was performed by Ned Crawford and the imposing Tassara cavalcade on the morrow and during a couple of wonderful days which followed. There being no railway, whatever the senora wished to take with her had to be conveyed in wagons or on pack-mules, and the ladies themselves now preferred the saddle to any kind of carriage. In fact, Ned shortly discovered that Senorita Felicia was more at home on horseback than he was, and he more than once congratulated himself that she had never witnessed his first performances in mounting his fat pony.

"How she would have laughed at me!" he thought. "But at that time there wasn't another spare saddle-horse, and she and her mother didn't care a cent whether I could ride or not. They were thinking of Guerra's lancers."

The scenery was exceedingly beautiful as well as peaceful. There was nothing whatever to suggest that a dreadful war was going on. There were houses of friends to stop at, instead of hotels. There were towns and villages of some importance to be rapidly investigated by a tourist like Ned, from New York by way of England, and now a good young Mexican for the time being. Then there was an exciting evening, when all who were on horseback rode ahead of the wagons and on into the city, which occupies the site of the wonderful Tenochtitlan, which was captured by Hernando Cortes and his daring adventurers ever so long ago. From that time onward, during a number of busy days, Ned became better and better satisfied with the fact that his father had sent him across the sea to learn all that he could of Mexico and the Mexicans.



CHAPTER X.

PICTURES OF THE PAST

"Oh, how I wish we had some news from the war!" exclaimed Ned.

"Well," said Senorita Felicia, doubtfully, "there isn't much, but I suppose there is some almost ready to come."

"I'm tired of waiting for it," replied Ned, "and if there isn't to be any war news, I wish I had some books!"

The thought that was in Ned Crawford's mind had broken out suddenly, as he sat at the dinner-table of Senora Mercedes Paez, at the end of those first days after his arrival in the city of Mexico. There were a number of persons at the table, and at the head of it was Senora Paez herself. She was shorter and stouter, but she was every ounce as stately and imposing as was even Senora Tassara. In front of her sat one affair which had, from the beginning of his visit in that house, made him feel more at home than he might otherwise have done. He had become used to it, and it seemed like an old friend. That Seville coffee-urn had ornamented the table in the house at Vera Cruz, his first refuge after he came ashore out of the destructive norther. It had winked at him from a similar post of honor in the country-house out in Puebla, and Senora Tassara had affectionately brought it with her to the residence of her city cousin. She had said that she thought it would be safer here, even if the city should be captured by those terrible robbers, the Americans. They could not be intending to steal and melt up all the old silver in Mexico.

"Why, Senor Carfora!" exclaimed Senorita Felicia, indignantly. "Did you not know? Aunt Paez has piles and piles of books. They are up in the library. If you wish to read them, she will let you go there. I had forgotten that you know how to read. He may do it, may he not, Aunt Mercedes?"

"Of course he may," replied the senora, "but it is a curious idea for a boy of his age."

"Oh, thank you!" exclaimed Ned. "But what I'd like to have are some books that tell about old Mexico and about the city of Tenochtitlan, that stood here before the Spaniards came. I've been all around everywhere. I've seen the swamps and the lakes and the walls and forts and everything. The great cathedral—"

"That," interposed Senora Tassara, "stands on the very spot where an old temple of the Aztec war-god stood. There were altars in it, where they used to kill and burn hundreds and thousands of human sacrifices to Huitzilopochtli, and there were altars to other gods."

"I can't exactly speak that name," said Ned, "but I want to know all about him and the sacrifices. I want to learn, too, just how Cortes and his men took the old city. I suppose that when the Americans come, it will be a different kind of fight—more cannon."

"They won't get here at all," quietly remarked a military-looking old gentleman sitting near the other end of the table. "It is a long road from the Rio Grande, and President Paredes is to march, in a few days, to crush our enemies with an army of twenty thousand men. They have not so much as taken Monterey yet. You are right, though. If they should ever get here, they will find the city harder to take than Cortes did. They will all die before the walls."

He spoke with a great deal of patriotic enthusiasm, and Ned knew that it was his turn to keep still, for the old gentleman had no idea that he was talking to a wicked young gringo. Senora Paez, however, calmly replied:

"Ah, Colonel Rodriguez, my dear friend, the President himself has said that, after he has beaten them at the northern border, as he surely will, the Americans are sure to make another attempt by way of Vera Cruz. That, too, was the opinion of our brave friend, Colonel Guerra, and he is making every preparation for a siege. It is part of our grateful hospitality to our guest, Senor Carfora, that his friends have supplied the Castle of San Juan de Ulua with the ammunition which will be needed. He came over on the ship which brought it, and he has remained with us ever since."

Just then Ned Crawford knew what it was to feel very mean indeed. He felt as if he himself were telling a large lie, and his cheeks flushed red-hot. He was aware, nevertheless, that even Senora Tassara had not been told everything, and that Senora Paez was reasonably honest in what she had been saying. There was no necessity for enlightening Colonel Rodriguez. Hardly, therefore, had the old gentleman vehemently exclaimed, "They never can take San Juan de Ulua!" than Ned went hastily back to his first subject of the ancient history.

"That's it," he said. "I want to find out how Cortes got ashore, and how he fought his way from the coast to this place. He must have had to cross the mountains, through the passes, just as our party did when we came."

"Yes," said the colonel. "He had to climb seven thousand and five hundred feet up out of the tierra caliente, and, if any gringos ever try that path, they will find all the passes full of fighting Mexicans and good artillery well posted. Hernando Cortes had all the gunpowder there was in America when he tried that road."

"My dear young friend," said Senora Paez, "you will find plenty of the books you wish for. My husband was fond of collecting them. After dinner, the senorita will show you the library, and you may read anything there."

Ned was silent once more, for he was still feeling mean, and was asking himself whether he were not, after all, a kind of spy in the Mexican camp, going around in disguise, and all the while wishing that he could help the American army to capture the city.

"Anyhow," he thought, "I can't help myself just now, and when the city is taken, everything in the Paez house will be entirely safe. I shouldn't wonder if that old coffee-urn will be safer from thieves than it is now. There have been half a dozen burglaries since we came, and I've seen hundreds of the wildest-looking kinds of fellows from the mountains. Every man of them looked as if he'd like to steal some silver."

While he was thinking, he was also listening, with a great deal of interest, to a description which the old officer was giving of the defences of Monterey, and of the reasons why the American troops would surely be defeated. It appeared that he had at one time been the commander of the garrison of the fortress known as the Black Fort, just outside of the walls of Monterey, on the north, and he evidently believed it to be impregnable. Ned was no soldier, and it did not occur to him to ask, as General Taylor might have done, whether or not it was possible to take the town without wasting time in taking the fort first.

"Come, Senor Carfora," said Felicia, as they all arose from the table, "I will show you the library. You can't do much reading there to-night, though, for the lamps have all been taken away. I do not wish to go there, anyhow, except in the daytime. It is a pokerish kind of place. Do you believe in ghosts? I do not, but, if I were a ghost, I would pick out that library for a good place to hide in. Come along. You are a foreigner, and any kind of good Mexican ghost won't like you."

Whether she herself did so or not, she led the way, and no lamp was as yet needed, although the day was nearly over and the shadows were coming. Up-stairs they went and through a short passageway in the second story of the Paez mansion, and they were almost in the dark when she said to him:

"Here we are. Hardly any one ever comes here, and it will be dreadfully dusty. Books are dusty old things anyhow."

She turned the big brass knob in the dusky door before them, and shoved against it with all her might, but Ned had to help her with his shoulder, or the massive mahogany portal would not have yielded an inch. It did go slowly in, upon its ancient-looking bronze hinges, and then they were in a room which was worth looking at. It was not so very large, only about fifteen feet by twenty, but it was unusually high, and it had but one tall, narrow slit of a window. Close by this, however, were a finely carved reading chair and table, ready to receive all the light which the window might choose to let in. Ned was staring eagerly around the room, when his pretty guide remarked:

"You had better see all you can before it gets any darker. Take down as many books as you want. I don't care much for those fusty-musty old histories. I must go away now—"

"Hullo, senorita!" exclaimed Ned. "There is a lamp on the table. I have some matches—"

"I don't believe you can make it burn," she said, "but you can try. It has not been lighted for this ever so long, and the oil may have dried up."

Around she whirled and away she went, leaving Ned to his own devices. His next thought was almost impolite, after all, for he was more than half glad that she did go, so that he might have the library all to himself to rummage in. He did not instantly examine the lamp, for he had never before been in just this kind of room, and it fascinated him. All its sides were occupied by high bookcases, every one of them crammed full of volumes of all sorts and sizes. He thought that he had never seen larger books than were some of the fat folios on the lower shelves. There were great, flat, atlas-looking concerns leaning against them, and out on the floor stood several upright racks of maps. Old Senor Paez may have been what is called a book-worm. At all events, Ned had understood that he was a very learned man, with a strong enthusiasm for American history.

"Heavens and earth!" suddenly exclaimed Ned. "What is that?"

He darted forward to a further corner of the room, as if he were in a great hurry to meet somebody who had unexpectedly come in. It certainly was something almost in human shape, but it had been standing there a long while, and the hand which it appeared to hold out to him was of steel, for it was nothing in the wide world but a complete suit of ancient armor. It was so set up in that corner, however, that it almost seemed alive, with its right hand extended, and its left holding a long, pennoned lance. Its helmet had a barred vizor, so that if there had been any face behind that, it would have been hidden. Ned went and stood silently before it for a moment, staring at that vizor.

"I say," he muttered, as if he did not care to speak any louder. "I don't believe General Taylor's men would care to march far with as much iron as that on them—not in hot weather. But the old Aztecs didn't have anything that would go through that kind of uniform. If Cortes and his men wore it, there is no wonder that they went on killing the Indians without being much hurt themselves."

In fact, not all of them had been dressed up in precisely such a manner, although they did wear armor.