"I consider it highly probable," asserted Aunt Maria, forgetting her Scandinavian hypothesis. "I don't see how you can doubt that that flaxen-haired girl is a descendant of Medoc, Prince of Wales."
"Madoc," corrected Thurstane.
"Well, Madoc then," replied Aunt Maria rather pettishly, for she was dreadfully tired, and moreover she didn't like Thurstane.
A few minutes' walk brought them to the rampart which surrounded the pueblo. Its foundation was a solid blind wall, fifteen feet or so in height, and built of hewn stone laid in clay cement. Above was a second wall, rising from the first as one terrace rises from another, and surmounted by a third, which was also in terrace fashion. The ground tier of this stair-like structure contained the storerooms of the Moquis, while the upper tiers were composed of their two-story houses, the entire mass of masonry being upward of thirty feet high, and forming a continuous line of fortification. This rampart of dwellings was in the shape of a rectangle, and enclosed a large square or plaza containing a noble reservoir. Compact and populous, at once a castle and a city, the place could defy all the horse Indians of North America.
"Bless me! this is sublime but dreadful," said Aunt Maria when she learned that she must ascend to the landing of the lower wall by a ladder. "No gate? Isn't there a window somewhere that I could crawl through? Well, well! Dear me! But it's delightful to see how safe these excellent people have made themselves."
So with many tremblings, and with the aid of a lariat fastened around her waist and vigorously pulled from above by two Moquis, Aunt Maria clutched and scraped her way to the top of the foundation terrace.
"I shall never go down in the world," she remarked with a shuddering glance backward. "I shall pass the rest of my days here."
From the first platform the travellers were led to the second and third by stone stairways. They were now upon the inside of the rectangle, and could see two stories of doors facing the plaza and the reservoir in its centre, the whole scene cheerful with the gay garments and smiling faces of the Moquis.
"Beautiful!" said Aunt Maria. "That court is absolutely swept and dusted. One might give a ball there. I should like to hear Lucretia Mott speak in it."
Her reflections were interrupted by the courteous gestures of a middle-aged, dignified Moqui, who was apparently inviting the party to enter one of the dwellings.