He shook himself as if by physical effort he could get rid of the
feeling and then went to the water palm in which he cut another gash.
Again the fountain gushed forth and he drank. But the palm was a small
one. There was too little soil among the crevices of the ancient masonry
to support a larger growth, and he saw that it could not satisfy his
thirst more than a day or two. But anything might happen in that time,
and his courage suffered no decrease.

He retreated toward the center of the platform as the day was now coming
fast after the southern fashion. The whole circle of the heavens seemed
to burst into a blaze of light, and, in a few hours, the sun was hotter
than it had been before. Many sounds now came from the camp below, but
Ned, although he often looked eagerly, saw no signs of coming departure.
Shortly after noon there was a great blare of trumpets, and a detachment
of lancers rode up. They were large men, mounted finely, and the heads
of their long lances glittered as they brandished them in the sun.

Ned's attention was drawn to the leader of this new detachment, an
officer in most brilliant uniform, and he started. He knew him at once.
It was the brother-in-law of Santa Anna, General Martin Perfecto de Cos,
a man in whom that old, cruel strain was very strong, and whom Ned
believed to be charged with the crushing of the Texans. Then he was
right in his surmise that Mexican forces for the campaign were
gathering here on the banks of the Teotihuacan!

More troops came in the afternoon, and the boy no longer had the
slightest doubt. The camp spread out further and further, and assumed
military form. Not so many men were lounging about and the tinkling of
the guitars ceased. Ned could see General de Cos plainly, a heavy man of