“I understand,” said the scout. “We are to be killed, at the order of this woman, so that knowledge of this place may not get to the world outside. But you may tell her, for me, that she is making a mistake in that, for if I and my friends do not return from this spot the United States government will surely send here a force strong enough to annihilate this whole tribe of Toltecs. I wish you’d make that plain to her, Conover, if she doesn’t thoroughly understand my words now.” The woman’s face was still impassive. Nor did it change in its expression even when Tom Conover began to translate to her in the Toltec language the threatening statement which Buffalo Bill had made. The scout could see that the woman did not intend to relent. CHAPTER XXV. THE HEART OF TOM CONOVER. The battle that raged in the heart of Tom Conover after that interview with Buffalo Bill can be but dimly indicated here. In the end the man’s better instincts triumphed. Buffalo Bill and his friends did not at once know this, however. Night came early in the town that lay in the deep pit of the plain, the evening shadows deepening there even before the sun had set on the world outside. Within the marble prison the darkness was soon so dense that, as Wild Bill said, “it could be felt.” No food had been brought to the prisoners, nor had any messenger come to them, after that first announcement, conveyed by the woman herself, that it had been decided in council they were to die. They crouched in the gloom and talked as the slow hours slipped by, while they waited, they did not know for what. They tried the gold-copper bars of their prison again and again, but the bars were too strong and well set; they could not even shake them. They had no tools with which to hack at the marble walls, and probably if tools had been in their possession they could have accomplished nothing in that way. “Ach!” grunted the baron, after a long interval of silence. “Dose vite Inchin mans vass a liar peen, aber he ton’d come unt hellup me, like as he said. Uff I hat someding to ead, I vouldn’t veel so pat, maybe. Here iss a town full of golt, and noddings to ead.” “There is enough to eat in the town, no doubt,” commented Wild Bill, “but it’s like the gold—we can’t get it.” “Aber I hund vor golt eenymore I hobes somepoty vill keeck me ka-vick.” “I’m afraid you won’t hunt for gold any more, baron! But what’s the use of being blue? Can’t we do something—can’t we sing a little? I’ve got a voice like a crow, but I’d join in, if somebody would raise a tune.” He began to sing a popular air that had a lighthearted lilt in it, and it was wonderful what a change it made in their spirits. They began to talk more confidently, and plan for a vigorous resistance when the time came for it. But later on their plans were altered.