on us th' worst kind. Do you feel strong enough,
Professor, to tie th' ends o' this rag?" He had been binding up the cut
in his forehead, and now he got down on his hands and knees in front of
me, and bent his head down within easy reach of my hands; and my
strength had so far returned to me that without being very tired after
it I was able to make the ends of the bandage fast. The blow on his head
had glanced from the skull, luckily; but it had been heavy enough to
stun him for some minutes after he received it--and his falling as
though dead had been the means, no doubt, of saving his life, even as in
the same manner my life had been saved. Rayburn's wound was a worse one
than either Young's or mine, for a great gash in his thigh had wellnigh
cut his leg off, and until, with Young's help, he had improvised a
tourniquet, from a bowstring and a broken fragment of a javelin, he had
been in great danger of bleeding to death.

For more than an hour we were suffered to lie in the gate-way; while the
work went on of slaying the wretched Tlahuicos, and then of marshalling
the more important personages who had been reserved alive as prisoners,
and, finally, of restoring order in the victorious ranks. At the end of
this time an officer with a squad of men came to where we were lying,
and roughly ordered us to rise, to the end that we also might be placed
among the prisoners. Young and I had so far recovered our strength that
we managed to scramble on our feet with no great difficulty; though in
my case this exertion, which made the blood flow more briskly in my
veins, suddenly increased so greatly the pain in my head as to bring
upon me for a little while a dizziness that compelled me to lean against
the wall for support. In Rayburn's case standing was quite out of the
question; and I shortly told the officer in what manner he was wounded,
and that to make him rise and walk assuredly would start the bandage on
his leg, and so lead to his quickly bleeding to death. Thereupon the
officer gave an order to some of his men to fetch a stretcher such as
their own wounded were carried in; yet at the same time he said to me:
"This companion of yours is a brave man; and but for my orders, I would
loosen the bandage with my own hands, and so let him die without further
pain;" which speech, notwithstanding the obviously kind intention of it,
I did not translate to Rayburn at that time.

While we waited for the stretcher to be brought, the