r in command of our guard took him roughly by the shoulders and
snatched him thence to the ground again; which act led Tizoc and me to a
quick exchange of startled glances, for it showed very plainly that the
Priest Captain--to whom the messenger telling of our coming into the
valley had been sent before any of these people had seen Pablo mounted
upon El Sabio's back--had anticipated this sign of the fulfilment of the
prophecy and had given orders to prevent it. Luckily, the celerity with
which Pablo had executed my quick order to mount had saved the day for
us; and even more than saved it, for as we passed through the crowd, on
our way from the water-side into the city, I caught here and there
fragments of comment upon what had just passed which showed that not
only was the sign told of in the prophecy recognized, but that the
effort on the part of the officer to neutralize it was understood.

But before our going into the city there was a stirring conflict of
authority concerning us between the temporal and the spiritual powers.
We were no more than fairly landed, indeed, when an officer addressed
the barge-master, who continued in charge of our party, and gave him a
formal order to bring the strangers directly before the Council of the
Twenty Lords. And to this the barge-master replied that he already was
under orders to bring the prisoners, immediately upon their landing,
before the Priest Captain--and there was something both curious and
ominous, it struck me, in the marked manner in which the term
"strangers" was employed by one of these men and the term "prisoners" by
the other.

At this juncture we had further proof of the foresight of the Priest
Captain, and of the determined stand that he was prepared to make rather
than to suffer the miscarriage of big plans. While the barge-master and
the messenger from the Council still were engaged in hot talk as to
which of the two conflicting orders should be recognised, there was the
sound of tramping feet and of arms clanking; and then a body of fully
one hundred soldiers came quickly from behind a house that was near by
the water-side and swept down on a double-quick to where we were
standing at the end of the pier. The crowd, jostled aside to make way
for the passage of the soldiers, evidently regarded them with
astonishment; and this astonishment rapidly changed to anger as the
purpose that brought them thither was made plain. In a moment they had
closed in around