Bewildered, supine before their leader, they made no protest when Matthew raised aloft the standard and pledged their fealty to this unknown Spanish king. Here, too, where only twelve years before the last Franciscan father had met his martyrdom in some unconfessed horror of revengeful hate, these native people, some of whom were doubtless participants in that crime, saw two other padres, garbed even as the one they had foully done to death, bidding them repent and promising them absolution of all their misdeeds. By a rite they understood somewhat better, the little children were next given baptism. No doubt the general in his handsome accoutrements was an awesome figure as he stood godfather to Matthew’s child and later to various other infants. Strange and moving scene, fraught with pregnant possibilities! This business finished, De Vargas once again became the practical director, and in haste to make up for the delay these suspicious people had occasioned him, he wheeled about with a brief command that crosses should be erected at the pass and that prayers be said by the people before the cross now in the square, each day at sunrise and at sunset. Before he might descend to the plain a visit must be paid to the church and the titular saint of the pueblo. Vargas describes St. Stephen’s shrine as of great extent with walls “almost a yard and a half in thickness which stand firm in spite of the heavy rains that break the windows and skylights.” This controverts the ordinary statement that the church had been entirely destroyed in the Revolt of 1680, and makes it probable that in 1699 the ancient edifice was only restored and did not have to be entirely built anew. De Vargas gives hearty thanks to God that he with “barely fifteen men,”[88] including his secretary and officers, had succeeded in the conquest of this most difficult of all pueblos. He mentions the cisterns on the summit, from which Ácoma is supplied with water. He was evidently impressed by the contrast of their abundance with the plight of his own force, for he says that as he made his way back to camp he felt no little anxiety as to how he should find them. When he arrived he found that his men during his absence had cleared out a nearly dry spring sufficiently to give their animals some water. Next day Vargas went on towards Zuñi. All through 1693, though some Keres villages aided Vargas, Ácoma was insubordinate, and early in 1694 made an alliance with Moqui, Zuñi, and certain Apaches. By the end of 1694 New Mexico was believed to be once more pacified. The Franciscans busied themselves with the erection of new churches and other needful buildings. The Indians, however, continued restless and mutinous—a condition according to the padres due to Vargas, who had created hostility by appropriating for the use of the Spaniards fertile lands belonging to the natives.