e; "and, as for being heretics, that was an affair for the saints and
the priests; the comfortable benefits of the Holy Catholic Church, had
not been vouchsafed to all nations."

Political changes are favorable to religious tolerance, and the priests
themselves had been sensible of a great decrease in their influence
during the pending struggle. Prominent Mexicans had given aid and
comfort to the Americans in spite of their spiritual orders, and there
were many men who, like Lopez Navarro, did not dare to go to confession,
because they would have been compelled to acknowledge themselves rebels.

When the doctor and Dare and Luis reached the Plaza, the morning after
the surrender, they found the city already astir. Thousands of women
were in the churches saying masses for the dead; the men stood at
their store doors or sat smoking on their balconies, chatting with the
passers-by or watching the movements of the victorious army and the
evacuation of the conquered one.

Nearly all of the brave two hundred occupied the Plaza. They were still
greatly excited by the miraculous ecstacy of victory. But when soldiers
in the death-pang rejoice under its influence, what wonder that the
living feel its intoxicating rapture? They talked and walked as if they
already walked the streets of Mexico. All things seemed possible to
them. The royalty of their carriage, the authority in their faces, gave
dignity even to their deerskin clothing. Its primitive character was
its distinction, and the wearers looked like the demi-gods of the heroic
stage of history.

Lopez Navarro touched the doctor and directed his attention to them.
"Does the world, Senor, contain the stuff to make their counterparts?"

"They are Americans, Navarro. And though there are a variety of
Americans, they have only one opinion about submitting to tyrants--THEY
WON'T DO IT!"

This was the conversation interrupted by Ortiz and the message he
brought, and the doctor was thoroughly sobered by the events following.
He was not inclined to believe, as the majority of the troops did, that
Mexico was conquered. He expected that the Senora's prediction would
be verified. And the personal enmity which the priesthood felt to him
induced a depressing sense of personal disaster.

Nothing in the house or the city seemed inclined to settle. It took a
few days to draw up the articles of capitulation and clear the town
of General Cos and the Mexican troops. And he had no faith i