Chapter 6 - Page 2

troop. He smiled down at Ned, and Ned, despite himself, smiled back.

"I know you," said he, speaking perfect English. "You are Edward Fulton, the lad who was held in the prison with Stephen Austin, the Texan, the lad who starved himself that he might slip between the bars of his window. There was much talk at the capital about it, and you were not without admirers. You showed so much courage and resource that you deserved to escape, but we could not let you go."

"I got lost and I was without food."

"Rather serious obstacles. They have held many a boy and man. But since I know so much about you and you know nothing about me I will tell you who I am. My name is Juan Nepomuceno Almonte, and I am a colonel in the service of Mexico and of our great Santa Anna. I was educated in that United States of yours, Texan, though you call yourself. That is why I speak the English that you hear. I have friends, too, among your people."

"Well, Colonel Almonte," said Ned, "since I had to be recaptured, I'm glad I fell into your hands."

"I wish I could keep you in them," he said, "but I am under the command of General Cos, and I have to rejoin the main force which he leads."

Ned understood. Cos was a man of another type. But he resolved not to anticipate trouble. Almonte again looked at him curiously, and then leaning forward said confidentially:

"Tell me, was it you who knocked our soldier down on the side of the pyramid and took his lantern? If it is true, it can't do you any harm to acknowledge it now."

"Yes," replied Ned with some pride, "it was I. I came upon him suddenly and I was as much surprised as he. I hit out on the impulse of the moment, and the blow landed in exactly the right place. I hope he was not much hurt."

"He wasn't," replied Almonte, laughing with deep unction. "He was pretty well covered with bruises and scratches, but he forgot them in the awful fright you gave him. He took you to be some demon, some mysterious Aztec god out of a far and dim past, who had smitten him with lightning, because he presumed to climb upon a sacred pyramid. But some of us who were not so credulous, perhaps because we did not have his bruises and scratches, searched all the sides and the top of the pyramid. We failed to find you and we knew that you could not get through our lines. Now, will you tell me where you were?"

His tone was so intent and eager that Ned could not keep from laughing. Besides, the boy had a certain pride in the skill, daring and resource with which he had eluded the men of Cos.

"Did you look inside the pyramid?" he asked.

"Inside it?"

"Yes, inside. There's an opening sixty or seventy feet above the ground. I took your man's lantern when he dropped