"Your messenger has set off, excellency, but he will probably be some time ere he returns."
"Why so?"
"Because people are not allowed to ride about the city at night without a special authority, and he will be obliged to go and return on foot."
"No consequence, so long as he returns before sunrise."
"Oh, long before then, excellency."
"In that case all is for the best; but I think the moment is at hand when your friends will arrive."
"It is, excellency, so have the kindness to follow me."
"All right."
The travellers rose; in a twinkling the landlord removed all signs of supper, and then hid his guests behind the bar. This bar, which was very tall and deep, offered them a perfectly secure, if not convenient, hiding place, in which they crouched down with a pistol in each hand, in order to be ready for any event. They had scarce installed themselves ere several knocks, dealt in a peculiar fashion, were heard on the outer door.
[1] In order to protect themselves from the misfortunes which had before crushed them, the Mexicans placed themselves under the safeguard of the King of Azcapotzalco, on whose lands they had established themselves. This prince gave them two of his sons as governors, of whom the first was Acamapuhtli, chief of the Tenochcas. On their arrival in Ahanuec, these Indians had found on the summit of a rock a nopal, in which was an eagle devouring a serpent, and they took their name from it. Acamapuhtli selected this emblem as the totem of the race he was called upon to govern. During the War of Independence, the insurgents adopted this hieroglyphic as the arms of the Mexican Republic, in memory of the ancient and glorious origin of which it reminded them.