strictly Mexican stand-point, of "Rory O'More" that quite took our breaths away. While Pablo played, Dennis would stand by with his head cocked on one side, and with an air of attention as closely critical as that which El Sabio himself exhibited; and when Pablo went wrong, as he invariably did in his attempted bravura passages, Dennis would stop him with a wave of his hand, and an "Aisy now, me darlint! That's good enough Mexican, but it ain't good Irish at all, at all," and then would show him what good Irish was by singing "Rory O'More" in a fashion which made the old stone arches ring with a volume of music that could have given odds to an entire brass band. Poor Dennis! Only the other day I heard an organ-grinder grinding forth "Rory O'More," and the memory of the last time I heard Dennis sing that song, and of what heroic stuff that merry-hearted rough fellow then showed himself to be made, came suddenly over me, and there was a choking in my throat, and my eyes were full of tears.
Well, it was a good thing—or a bad thing, as you please to put it—that we could not see far into the future that morning when we packed our mules in the corral of the hotel, and set out upon the march that was to lead us through such perilous passages before we reached its end.
PACKING IN THE CORRAL
That I might fill to the brim the cup of Pablo's happiness—for my conscience pricked me a little that I suffered him to go with us—I had bought him the rain-coat of palm leaves for which his heart so long had pined. What with this and his revolver, and the delight of going upon a journey (for he had very fully developed that love of travel which is so strong in his race), his wits seemed to be completely addled with joy. He insisted upon putting on his absurd rain-coat at once; and he did so many foolish things that even El Sabio looked at him reproachfully—this was when he tried to place on that small donkey's back some of the heavy pack-stuff destined for the back of one of the big mules—and we got along much better with his room, as he presently enabled us to do, than we did with his company. When the time for starting came, we had quite a hunt for him; and we might not have found him at all had we not been guided by the sound of music to the sequestered spot to which he had retired in order to give vent to his pent-up feelings by playing on his mouth-organ "Pop goes the weasel"—an air that Young had been whistling that morning and that had mightily taken Pablo's fancy.
We made rather an imposing cavalcade as we filed forth from the great gate of the hotel, and took our way along the Calle Nacional, the principal street of the city, towards the Garita del Poniente. Fray Antonio and I rode first; then came Rayburn and Young, followed by Dennis Kearney; then the two pack-mules, beside which walked the two Otomí Indians; and closing the procession came Pablo, wearing his rain-coat, with his revolver strapped outside of it, and riding El Sabio with a dignity that would have done honor to the Viceroy himself. Pablo certainly was in the nature of an anti-climax; but I would not have told him so for the world. Fray Antonio wore the habit of his Order, this privilege having been specially granted to him by the Governor of the State as a safeguard for all his expeditions among the Indians. It was understood, indeed, that he now was going forth on one of his missionary visits among the mountain tribes, and simply rode with us, so far as our ways should lie together, for greater security. I had announced that I was going among the Indians again in order to increase my knowledge of their manners and customs; and Rayburn—to whom the rest of the party was supposed to belong—had stated that he was taking the field in order to make a new reconnaissance along the line of the projected railway. It was in order to maintain these several fictions that we went out by the western gate, and that we continued for two days our march westward before turning to our true course.
Of our progress during the ensuing fortnight it is not necessary that I should speak, for beyond the ordinary incidents of travel no adventures befell us. During this period we went forward steadily and rapidly; and at the end of it we had covered more than three hundred miles, and had come close to where—supposing our rendering of the Aztec map to be correct, and that we had rightly collated it with the dead monk's letter—the mission of Santa Marta had stood three centuries and a half before. There was no possibility that any trace of this mission would be found; but every rock that we came to was most eagerly scrutinized, for on any one of them might we find the King's symbol engraved.
For two or three days we had been travelling through a region very wild and desolate. Far away along the western horizon rose a range of mountains whose bare peaks cut a jagged line along the sky. The country between us and these far-away mountains was made up of many parallel ranges of rocky hills; which ranges were separated by broad, shallow valleys, where cactus and sage-brush covered the dry ground thickly; and the only trees that broke this dreary monotony were pita-palms, the most dismal thing in all created nature to which the name of a tree ever has been given by man. There was no trail, and travelling through this tangle of briers was very difficult. All of Rayburn's skill, which long practice had developed to a high degree, was required to enable us to pick a way through so thorny a wilderness. At times the Indians with their machetes, and Dennis with his axe, had to cut a path for us; and despite all our care, our own hands were cut and torn, and the legs of our poor beasts were red with blood.
The deadly dryness of this arid waste added to our discomfort. A strong dry wind blew steadily from the north, building up out of fine dust which was over all the surface of the baked ground little whirl-winds—remolinos, as the Mexicans call them—which went dancing down the valleys as though they were ghostly things; and occasionally, when one of these struck us, we were covered with a prickly dust that fairly burned our skins. What water we got was to be had only by digging in the arroyos which traversed the centre of each valley longitudinally; and although this water always was muddy, and had a strongly alkaline taste, it is the only thing that I remember with pleasure in all that weary land. Of animal life there was nothing to be seen, save a-plenty of rattlesnakes; and a few great buzzards which wheeled above us from time to time as though with the intention of keeping track of us until we should fall down and die of thirst and weariness, and they should be able to feast upon us at their ease.
At the end of the third day of this dreary travelling we had come close to the great western range of mountains, and our camp that night was made in the mouth of a little valley that opened from among the foot-hills. The night before we had made a dry camp, and for the whole of the twenty-four hours we had had but a pint of water apiece. Pablo, I am sure, had given half of his own scant allowance to El Sabio. The other animals—it was all that we could do for them—had only their dusty mouths and nostrils wiped out with a wet sponge. They were pitiable objects, with their bleeding legs, their haggard eyes, their out-hanging tongues, and their quivering flanks. As Fray Antonio unsaddled his horse I saw that there were tears in his eyes; but the rest of us, I fear, were too thoughtful of our own misery to feel much sorrow for the misery of our beasts.
I suppose that a man must suffer the lack of it, as we then did, in order to know how precious a thing water is. And to give some notion of its preciousness to those who not only are free at any time to drink their fill of it, but even can fill bath-tubs with it, and feel the joy of it on their bare bodies whenever they are so minded, I will say that when a little digging gave us that night as much water as we wanted, our joy was far greater than it would have been had we there found the hidden city of which we were in search.
Our well was sunk in the broad sandy bottom of the arroyo, in the midst of a narrow and delectably grassy valley between two foot-hills. And the abundance and the sweetness of the water, as well as the presence of grass, showed us that but a little way up this valley there must be an open stream. We drank, and our beasts drank, until all of our skins were nigh to bursting; and the abundance of water was so great that we even could wash the dust at last from our parched faces and necks and arms; and much like raw beef our skins looked when our washing was ended, and the stinging of them was as though we had been whipped with nettles. It was our intention now to
