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 army ten thousand strong, then musicians had sung
before us and our path was strewn with flowers. And now! Now we came two
fugitives from the vengeance of the Teules, I borne in a litter by four
tired soldiers, while Otomie, the princess of this people, still clad in
her wanton's robe, at which the women mocked, for she had been able to
come by no other, tramped at my side, since there were none to carry
her, and the inhabitants of the place cursed us as the authors of their
woes.
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