the
Tlascalans before they knew that enemies were there, they killed one of
them and took the other prisoner. Then they made a litter, and placing
you on it, bore you without rest twenty leagues into the mountains, till
they reached this secret hiding place, and here you have lain three days
and nights. The Teules have searched for you far and wide, but they have
searched in vain. Only yesterday two of them with ten Tlascalans, passed
within a hundred paces of this cave and I had much ado to prevent our
people from attacking them. Now they are gone whence they came, and I
think that we are safe for a time. Soon you will be better and we can go
hence.'

'Where can we go to, Otomie? We are birds without a nest.'

'We must seek shelter in the City of Pines, or fly across the water;
there is no other choice, husband.'

'We cannot try the sea, Otomie, for all the ships that come here are
Spanish, and I do not know how they will greet us in the City of Pines
now that our cause is lost, and with it so many thousands of their
warriors.'

'We must take the risk, husband. There are still true hearts in Anahuac,
who will stand by us in our sorrow and their own. At the least we have
escaped from greater dangers. Now let me dress your wounds and rest
awhile.'

So for three more days I lay in the cave of the mountains and Otomie
tended me, and at the end of that time my state was such that I could
travel in a litter, though for some weeks I was unable to set foot to
the ground. On the fourth day we started by night, and I was carried on
men's shoulders till at length we passed up the gorge that leads to the
City of Pines. Here we were stopped by sentries to whom Otomie told our
tale, bidding some of them go forward and repeat it to the captains of
the city. We followed the messengers slowly, for my bearers were weary,
and came to the gates of the beautiful town just as the red rays of
sunset struck upon the snowy pinnacle of Xaca that towers behind it,
turning her cap of smoke to a sullen red, like that of molten iron.

The news of our coming had spread about, and here and there knots of
people were gathered to watch us pass. For the most part they stood
silent, but now and again some woman whose husband or son had perished
in the siege, would hiss a curse at us.

Alas! how different was our state this day to what it had been when not
a year before we entered the City of Pines for the first time. Then we
were escorted by an