"We weren't destined to be drowned that time," said Obed with great satisfaction. "It just couldn't happen after our running such a gauntlet before reaching the sea. But the further we get away from salt water the safer we are."
"It was my plan at first," said Ned, "to go by way of the sea from Vera Cruz to a Texan port."
"Circumstances alter journeys. It can't be done now. We've got to cut across country. It's something like a thousand miles to Texas, but I think that you and I together, Ned, can make it."
Ned agreed. Certainly they had no chance now to slip through by the way of Vera Cruz, and the sea was not his element anyhow.
The rain ceased, and a few stars came out. They passed from the sand dunes into a region of marshes. Constant walking kept their blood warm, and their clothes were drying upon them. But they were growing very tired and they felt that they must rest and sleep even at the risk of recapture.
"There's a lot of grass growing on the dry ground lying between the marshes," said Ned, "and I suppose that the Mexicans cut it for the Vera Cruz market. Maybe we can find something like a haystack or a windrow. Dry grass makes a good bed."
They hunted over an hour and persistence was rewarded by a small heap of dry grass in a little opening surrounded by thorn bushes. They spread one covering of it on the ground, covered themselves to the mouth with another layer, and then went sound asleep, the old, unloaded musket lying by Obed White's side.
The two slept the sleep of deep exhaustion, the complete relaxation of both body and mind. Boy and man they had passed through ordeals that few can endure, but, healthy and strong, they suffered merely from weariness and not from shattered nerves. So they slept peacefully and their breathing was long and deep. They were warm as they lay with the grass above and below them like two blankets. It had not rained much here, and the grass had dried before their coming, so they were free from danger of cold.
The night passed and the brilliant Mexican day came, touching with red and gold the town that curved about the bay, and softening the tints of the great fortress that rose on the rocky isle. All was quiet again within San Juan de Ulua and Vera Cruz. It had become known in both castle and town that two Texans, boy and man, had escaped from the dungeons under the sea only to find a grave in the sea above. Their boat had been found far out in the bay where the returning waves carried it, but the fishes would feed on their bodies, and it was well, because the Texans were wicked people, robbers and brigands who dared to defy the great and good Santa Anna, the father of his people.
Meanwhile, the two slept on, never stirring under the grass. It is true that the boy had dreams of a mighty castle from which he had fled and of a roaring ocean over which he had passed, but he landed happily and the dream sank away into oblivion. Peons worked in a field not a hundred yards away, but they sought no fugitives, and they had no cruel thoughts about anything. That Spanish strain in them was wholly dormant now. They had heard in the night the signal guns from San Juan de Ulua and the tenderest hearted of them said a prayer under his breath for the boy whom the storm had given to the sea. Then they sang together as they worked, some soft, crooning air of love and sacrifice that had been sung among the hills of Spain before the Moor came. Perhaps if they had known that the boy and man were asleep only a hundred yards away, the tenderest hearted among them at least would have gone on with their work just the same.