s of salutation and made
the mountains ring. Ever as we went the land like its people grew wilder
and more beautiful, for now we were passing through forests clad with
oak and pine and with many a lovely plant and fern. Sometimes we crossed
great and sparkling rivers and sometimes we wended through gorges and
passes of the mountains, but every hour we mounted higher, till at
length the climate became like that of England, only far more bright. At
last on the eighth day we passed through a gorge riven in the red rock,
which was so narrow in places that three horsemen could scarcely have
ridden there abreast. This gorge, that is five miles long, is the high
road to the City of Pines, to which there was no other access except by
secret paths across the mountains, and on either side of it are sheer
and towering cliffs that rise to heights of between one and two thousand
feet.

'Here is a place where a hundred men might hold an army at bay,' I said
to Otomie, little knowing that it would be my task to do so in a day to
come.

Presently the gorge took a turn and I reined up amazed, for before me
was the City of Pines in all its beauty. The city lay in a wheelshaped
plain that may measure twelve miles across, and all around this plain
are mountains clad to their summits with forests of oak and cedar trees.
At the back of the city and in the centre of the ring of mountains is
one, however, that is not green with foliage but black with lava, and
above the lava white with snow, over which again hangs a pillar of smoke
by day and a pillar of fire by night. This was the volcan Xaca, or the
Queen, and though it is not so lofty as its sisters Orizaba, Popo, and
Ixtac, to my mind it is the loveliest of them all, both because of its
perfect shape, and of the colours, purple and blue, of the fires that
it sends forth at night or when its heart is troubled. The Otomies
worshipped this mountain as a god, offering human sacrifice to it, which
was not wonderful, for once the lava pouring from its bowels cut a path
through the City of Pines. Also they think it holy and haunted, so that
none dare set foot upon its loftier snows. Nevertheless I was destined
to climb them--I and one other.

Now in the lap of this ring of mountains and watched over by the mighty
Xaca, clad in its robe of snow, its cap of smoke, and its crown of fire,
lies, or rather lay the City of Pines, for now it is a ruin, or so I
left it. As to the city itself, it was no