While the whole party, with their cavalcade of mules and baggage were gazing upon the scene, two horsemen, in bright blue and yellow tunics, and wearing turbans decorated with three large plumes of the quezal, dashed by them from the forest, at the distance of about two hundred yards, on steeds of the highest Spanish mould, followed by a long retinue of athletic Indians, equally well mounted, clothed in brilliant red tunics, with coronals of gay feathers, closely arranged within a band of blue cloth. Each horseman carried a long spear, pointed with a polished metal; and each held, in a leash, a brace of powerful blood-hounds, which were also of the purest Spanish breed. The two leaders of this troop, who were Indians of commanding air and stature, suddenly wheeled their horses and glared upon the large party of intruders with fixed amazement. Their followers evinced equal surprise, but forgot not to draw up in good military array, while the blood-hounds leapt and raged in their thongs. "While the leaders," says Senor Velasquez, "seemed to be intently scrutinizing every individual of our company, as if silently debating the policy of an immediate attack, one of the Maya Indians, of whom I had been learning the dialect, stepped forward and informed us that they were a detachment of rural guards, a very numerous military force, which had been appointed from time immemorial, or, at least from the time of the Spanish invasion, to hunt down and capture all strangers of a foreign race that should be found within a circle of twelve leagues of the city; and he repeated the statement made to us from the beginning, that no white man had hitherto eluded their vigilance or left their city alive. He said there was a tradition that many of the pioneers of Alvarado's army had been cut off in this manner, and never heard of more, while their skulls and weapons are to this day suspended round the altars of the pagan gods. He added, finally, that if we wished to escape the same fate, now was our only chance; that as we numbered thirty-five, all armed with repeating rifles, we could easily destroy the present detachment, which amounted to but fifty, and secure our retreat before another could come up; but that, in order to do this, it was necessary first to shoot the dogs, which all our Indians regarded with the utmost dread and horror.