So they were, as much so as any other people in the world, and they were as capable of being developed and educated to better things. As to this being a new country, it came slowly back into Ned’s mind that there had been a great and populous empire here at a time when the island upon which the city of New York was afterward built was a bushy wilderness, occupied by half-naked savages, who were ready to sell it for a few dollars’ worth of kettles and beads.
“I guess I’m beginning to wake up,” thought Ned. “When the Goshawk was lying in the Bay of Vera Cruz, I was too busy to see anything. No, I wasn’t. I did stare at the Orizaba mountain peak, and they told me it is over seventeen thousand feet high. First mountain I ever saw that could keep on snow and ice in such weather as this. I don’t want to live up there in winter. Well! Now I’ve seen some of the biggest trees I ever did see. I wonder if any of them were here when the Spaniards came in. I guess they were, some of them.”
He was really beginning to see something of Mexico, and it almost made him forget the hardness of that unpleasant saddle. At the end of another mile, he was saying to himself:
“That field yonder is tobacco, is it? The one we just passed was sugar-cane, and Pablo said the plantation across the road was almost all coffee. He says that further on he will show me orange groves, bananas, and that sort of thing. But what on earth are grenaditas and mangoes? They’ll be something new to me, and I want to find out how they taste.”
Nothing at all of a military or otherwise of an apparently dangerous character had been encountered by the fugitive travellers when, at about the middle of the forenoon, they came to a parting of the ways. A seemingly well-travelled road went off to the left, or southward, while the one they were on turned more to the right and climbed a hill, as if it were making a further effort to get out of the tierra caliente. A great many things had been explained to Ned, as they rode along, and he was not surprised, therefore, when Señor Zuroaga said to him:
“My young friend, this is the place I told you of. We must part here. You and your pony will go on with Colonel Tassara, and I will take my chances for reaching my place of refuge in Oaxaca. It is not a very good chance, but I must make the best of it that I can. Take good care of yourself. I have already said good-by to the señora and the señorita. I think they will soon be out of danger.”
Ned was really grateful, and he tried to say so, but all he could think of just then was:
“General Zuroaga, I do hope you’ll get through all right. I hope I shall see you again safe and sound.”
“You never will,” said Zuroaga, as he wheeled his horse, “unless I get out of this Cordoba road. It is a kind of military highway, and I might meet my enemies at any minute—too many of them.”
“Good-by!” shouted Ned, and the general, who was still a great mystery to him, dashed away at a gallop, followed by Pablo and the wild riders from the Oaxaca ranches.