It was with some parade and solemn ceremony that Montoro de Diego was admitted into its precincts, and only upon the half-pleading, half-authoritative demand of the great chieftain's child. But at length he and his companions stood within one of the great halls, and the chatterbox tongues of the young girl, of Doña Marina, and of the Indian women were hushed to reverential silence. There upon the pavement, a few yards before them, lay a motionless human figure, emaciated to the last degree, and with a deathly pallidness visible even through the red-lined skin. Beside it lay the gaudy feather mantle, the grotesque helmet, and the copper-tipped javelin. The figure was that of a very young man, and, so it seemed to Montoro, of one fast dying, if not already dead. He turned with a glance of awed interrogation to his conductor, and was bewildered past all saying, and astounded, when he met her face glowing with enthusiasm and lighted by a pair of eyes brilliant with proud joy. "See, good chieftain," she murmured, with lips trembling with lofty emotion, "see now that it is not I only of the Tlascalans who know how to endure for honour's sake and our country. Yonder is my brother, the youngest. This is now the fifty-third day that he watches, prays, and fasts in the temple beside his armour, that he may hereafter with due rank and fortitude fight in the Republic's wars." "Surely," ejaculated Montoro, "surely this youth will never live to fight! Methinks he hath but hours of life left even for peace." As Doña Marina interpreted this speech the words caught the young knight's ears, and the figure which the Spaniard had taken for that of one in the death swoon had sprung to its feet, and by rapid words, and gestures of indignant scorn, gave swift proof that the emaciated frame was still instinct with keen vitality. The brother and sister exchanged a few low-spoken sentences, the probationer returned to his hard and comfortless couch beside the armour that he so longed to don, and the young guide led her party away to another part of the temple, where fresh scenes for wonder awaited her amateur surgeon. These said fresh scenes very nearly led to an outbreak of hostilities, for even Montoro de Diego, for all his self-discipline, had the fiery Spanish blood in his veins, and would imagine himself specially commissioned to set other folks to rights; at any rate to try to do so, whether the effort were wild or sensible. It is true, however, that the sights to which he was now introduced without any previous preparation were terrible enough to have aroused the uninformed indignation of any feeling heart. In one of the inner courts the Indian maiden made another pause, and pointed with one of her swathed-up arms to the farther end, where a group of men were collected around a companion, whom they were flogging with a savage force that cut open the flesh at every stroke of the lash. Montoro winced with sympathy as the great whip fell.