ate that Fray Antonio had gone forth to meet, and upon our present
powerlessness to defend him in any way against it. Although the envoy
had been sent back, and war was now resolutely determined upon, the
situation remained unchanged in so far as concerned the necessity
of our waiting for the Priest Captain to take the initiative. To
attack that great walled city was so hopeless a task that even the
Tlahuicos--flushed though they were by their victory over the
Council--did not venture to propose it; for they knew, as we all did,
that our only chance of carrying the enemy's stronghold lay in first
defeating its garrison in a battle in the open field. Yet this dull
inaction of waiting was a scarce of grave danger to us, in that it
tended to wear out the spirits of our men and to make them still more
careless of their guard. What Rayburn and I had seen that morning had
shown how little trust could be placed in them, in so far as the
soldierly attribute of watchfulness was concerned; and Tizoc, with whom
we conferred in regard to this important matter, had little to say that
we found comforting. Being himself a thorough soldier, he perceived the
danger to which the unsoldierly lack of vigilance on the part of the
Tlahuicos exposed our camp; but the situation was such that he was
powerless to take effective measures for our protection. The few regular
troops in our little army were not enough to do sentry duty everywhere,
and the best that could be done would be to dispose them at the points
most open to attack--"And then trust to luck," Rayburn put in, rather
bitterly, "that the enemy will be polite enough to try to surprise only
the part of the camp where the sentries are awake!"

Partly that we might see for ourselves how our pickets were disposed,
but more that by action of any sort we might divert our thoughts from
the sorrow that was gnawing at our hearts, we walked out together in the
late afternoon to the rocky heights of the promontory that on the
western side of the town extended far into the lake. From a military
stand-point this position was of great importance to us, inasmuch as
bowmen or slingmen gaining access to it could command a considerable
part of the town, and even could annoy very seriously the garrison of
the Citadel; and it also was of value to us as a place of lookout whence
an attacking party coming by way of the lake from the city could be
perceived while yet it was a long way off.

We were surpri