Having made sure by carefully searching among the rocks throughout the length of the promontory that none of the enemy was hidden there, we hastened back to the town to tell what we had come upon, and to provide for mounting fresh sentinels in the place of those who had been relieved by death. We had expected that the news which we brought would stir up a great commotion; and we were not a little troubled, therefore, knowing how serious the matter was in its exhibition of the carelessness of our guards, by finding that only Tizoc and a few other tried soldiers were more than lightly discomposed by what we had to tell. The general feeling seemed to be—inasmuch as our lucky discovery had dispelled the danger—that there was no need to worry about a calamity which had not occurred; and what after all was the most essential consideration—the constant danger that threatened us by reason of the criminal laxity of the watch maintained by our pickets—practically was lost sight of. Apparently neither the Council nor the higher officers of the army had the power to remedy this dangerous condition of affairs. At no time had any very strong authority been exercised over the Tlahuicos—for all the orders which until now had been given to them had been directed only towards urging them along a way that they were glad enough to follow of their own accord—and since their assertion of their will that morning, what little control had restrained their waywardness seemed to have been wholly lost.
However, as there was a chance in it of fighting, and as fighting was what they longed for earnestly, our unruly soldiers were willing enough that a strong detachment should be placed in ambush on the promontory, to the end that the force which the enemy probably would land there that night might be summarily dealt with. And the better to carry out our plan of a counter-surprise the dead sentinels were left where we found them. Tizoc was given the command of the ambushed force, and he willingly granted our request that we might accompany him; which request was prompted by the desire that we fully shared with the Tlahuicos to get at close quarters with the enemy, and also by the conviction that in Tizoc's company—though in his company we were like to have hot fighting and plenty of it—we would have better chances of safety than anywhere else in all our camp.
For this expedition we put on for the first time our armor of quilted cotton cloth; and the look of these garments certainly did justify Young's comments upon them. "It's a pity we can't get photographed now," he said, "so's t' send our likenesses in this rig home t' our folks. You'd just jolt the Cap Cod folks, Rayburn, with that pair o' telegraph poles you call your legs stickin' out from under th' tails o' that thing that looks like a cross between a badly made frock-coat and an undersized night-shirt. And I guess your college boys 'd be jolted, too, Professor, if they could get a squint at you. And I s'pose that if some o' th' hands on th' Old Colony happened t' ketch up with me dressed this way they'd think I'd gone crazy. But I haven't got anything t' say against these little night-shirts except about their looks. When you get right down t' th' hard-pan with 'em, they're a first-rate thing."
For three American citizens, belonging to the nineteenth century, we certainly presented a strange appearance, and appeared also in very strange company, as we marched out from the town late that afternoon with Tizoc and his men. Each of us carried half a dozen darts, and strapped around our waists, outside our cotton-cloth armor, we each wore a maccahuitl—the heavy sword with a jagged double edge that we knew from experience was an excellent weapon when wielded by a strong hand. Indeed, Young and I carried the darts rather to satisfy Tizoc than because we expected to make any very effective use of them, and all of our reliance both for assault and defence was upon what we could do with our swords at close quarters. Rayburn, however, had been practising dart-throwing very diligently, and as he naturally was an extraordinarily dextrous man he had made rapid progress in this savage art. The soldiers in our company, naked creatures, lithe and sinewy, were armed for the most part with spears and slings; and the officers wore each a sword and carried each a handful of darts. As we all stepped out briskly together I could not but think how amazed would be the President of the University of Michigan, and my fellow-members of the Faculty of that institution of learning, should they happen to encounter me in that barbarous company, and arrayed in that most barbarous garb!
THE LAST RALLY
It was a little before sunset when we reached the place that Tizoc had selected for our ambush upon the promontory; and an hour later, just as the shadows of evening were beginning to fall, one of our lookout men reported that a large boat—of which the oars must be muffled, for no sound came from it—was pulling around a point just beyond where we lay. There was a little stir among our men when this news was received, and a shifting and arranging of weapons, so that all might be in readiness when the moment for opening the ambush came; but we had a picked force with us, each man of which fully understood how necessary was silence to the success of our plans, and the quick thrill of movement was so guarded that it scarcely ruffled the deep stillness of the night.