iers. The fact that no Tlahuicos were among the
prisoners led me to conclude that such of these as had not been slain
had been held under guard until they might be returned to their owners
or set again to toiling hopelessly in the mine.

The importance that in the estimation of our captors attached to
ourselves was shown by their placing us at the very head of the column,
in advance even of the members of the Council; and this was a compliment
that we willingly enough would have declined, for such honorable
consideration, according to the customs of this people, meant surely
that we were reserved for a very exemplary fate. But we were in no
position to raise objections of any sort just then, and we therefore
fell into the place assigned to us and tried as well as we could to show
a bold front as we went downward towards the lake.

Only a few terrified women and children, who fled away as we advanced,
were in sight as we passed through the streets of the town; and from
many of the hovels came the moans of poor wounded wretches who had
crawled to their miserable homes to die in them; and from others came
the lamentations of women over their dead; and in nooks and corners,
whither with their last strength they had dragged themselves, we saw men
lying dead in pools of their own blood. But down by the water-side there
were live men in plenty, soldiers and oarsmen, and the pier was crowded
with them; while out beyond the pier the whole bay was swarming with
the boats in which the enemy's forces had stolen down upon us in the
darkness from Culhuacan; making their landing, as we now learned, just
beyond the town in a bay that ran up close to where our army was
encamped. And this scene of bustling activity in the bright sunshine
made a joyous and brilliant picture; that was all the brighter because
of its setting in that sunlit bay, opening out between beaches of
golden-yellow sand upon the broad expanse of restful water which fell
away in gleaming splendor into a bank of soft gray haze.

But the picture was still more stirring that we saw as we looked
landward, when the barge that we were put aboard of pulled out from the
pier and our rowers lay on their oars, and so waited while the work of
embarkation went on. Right in front of us was the broad central street
of the town; and the whole length of this, from the pier to the Citadel,
was filled with a solidly massed body of soldiers that came down the
steep descent slowly, and