ponder upon when, at last,
meeting with no opposition, they broke in the grating that barred the
entrance to the Citadel, and found within the enclosure not one single
living soul! And so cleverly had the fugitives closed the way behind
them that a long while passed before it was known certainly what had
become of this living host that, as it seemed, in a moment had vanished
from off the face of the earth. More than half a lifetime went by
without the shedding of light upon this mystery; and it seemed as though
a ghost had risen when one day a very aged man came forth from that
long-abandoned passage in the mine and surrendered himself to the first
of the guards whom he encountered--and then told that he was a priest
whom the fleeing rebels had carried captive with them, and whom they had
held a prisoner through all these many years. And he told also how the
rebels had made their home in a certain fair valley that was shut in and
hidden among the mountains; and how that they had built a great
city--resting fearless in the conviction that they were safe from harm.
By the heavy toil that had been needful to open anew the way into the
mine from the canon, the little remnant of strength in this old man's
body had been exhausted; and presently, having told his story, he died.

Then it was that the Priest Captain and the Council who ruled in that
ancient time, having assured themselves by the sending out of spies that
all which the old man had told them was true, planned to bring upon the
rebels a very terrible vengeance; which was to drown them all in their
city by letting loose upon them the waters of a mighty lake. And this
plan, though its accomplishment was not arrived at until two full cycles
had passed away, so mighty was the labor that it involved, at last was
executed: and in one single day every living creature in all that valley
was overwhelmed by the flood let loose into it; and where so great a
mass of teeming life had been there remained thereafter only the
desolate silence and stillness of universal death.

It was with long-drawn breaths that Fray Antonio and I listened to
Tizoc's telling of this tradition, which in many ways was far more real
to us than it possibly could be to him; for we but lately had passed
through that death-stricken valley--and ourselves had been like to die
there--and every feature of the scene, that he could but vaguely
describe to us, we had clearly in our minds. And thus we came to kn