There was no one to inform Ned that the Mexican commander had invited General Taylor to do so before the fight was half over, and that the stubborn old American had unkindly refused the invitation. At this moment, however, the señorita’s tongue began to busy itself with quite another matter. The United States fleet, under Commodore Connor, had, indeed, begun to arrive in front of Vera Cruz on the 18th of February, with a vast convoy of transport ships under its protection, having on board the army of General Scott. Neither Ned nor the señorita was aware, however, how many important questions have to be answered before so many military passengers might undertake to land, with all their baggage, within possible reach of the artillery of an enemy. Felicia, for her part, was positive that they all were too badly scared by the Castle of San Juan de Ulua and by the bad news from Buena Vista to so much as try to make a landing.
“General Santa Anna himself is now marching down to meet them,” she told him, “with his whole victorious army, and he will crush them as fast as they can get out of their ships.”
Owing to the grand reports from their army, this was precisely the idea which was forming in the minds of all the people of Mexico.
“Oh, Señorita Felicia!” said Ned, as if he were quite willing to change the subject. “I’ve had a wonderful time. I’ve been travelling, travelling, travelling, everywhere with the general.”
“Tell me all about it!” she commanded him. “I want to know. It seems to me as if I had been shut up here and had not seen anybody.”
“Well, I can’t tell it all just now,” he said, “but when we left here we hurried all the way to Oaxaca. Then we stayed there awhile, among his own people, and nobody gave us any trouble. No, I mustn’t forget one thing, though. A band of those mountain robbers came one night, and we had an awful fight with them—”
“Did you kill any of them?” she asked, hastily. “They all ought to be killed. They are ready to murder anybody else.”
“Well,” said Ned, “we beat them, and ten of them were shot. I was firing away all the while, but I don’t know if I hit any of them. It was too dark to tell. The rest of them got away. But I’ve hunted deer, and I killed a good many of them. I shot a lynx, too, and a lot of other game. There’s the best kind of fishing on the general’s estates. I like fishing. Then we went south, to the Yucatan line, and I saw some queer old ruins. After that, the general’s business took him away up north of Oaxaca, and I went with him, and I saw half the States of Mexico before we finished the trip. I’ve seen the silver mines and Popocatepetl and Istaccihuatl, and I don’t care to ever see any higher mountains than they are.”
“I have seen Popocatepetl,” she said, “and it almost made me have the headache. They say it is full of sulphur, to make gunpowder with.”
Before she could tell anything more about the possible uses of the tall, old volcano, her mother reëntered the parlor.