"I instantly felt the force of this advice, in which, also, I was sustained by Senor Hammond; but Senor Huertis, whom, as the leader of the expedition, we were all bound and solemnly pledged to obey; utterly rejected the proposition. He had come so far to see the city and see it he would, whether taken thither as a captive or not, and whether he ever returned from it or not, that this was the contract originally proposed, and to which I had assented; that the fine troop before us was evidently not a gang of savages, but a body of civilized men and good soldiers; and as to the dogs, they were noble animals of the highest blood he ever saw. If, however, I and his friend Hammond, who seemed afraid of being eaten, in preference to the fine beef and venison which we had seen in such profusion on the plain, really felt alarmed at the bugbear legends of our vagabond Indians, before any demonstration of hostility had been made, we were welcome to take two-thirds of the men and mules and make our retreat as best we could, while he would advance with Antonio and the remainder of the party, to the gates of the city, and demand a peaceable admission. I could not but admire the romantic intrepidity of this resolve, though I doubted its discretion; and assured him I was ready to follow his example and share his fate. "While this conversation was passing among us, the Indian commanders held a conference apparently as grave and important. But just as Senor Huertis and myself had agreed to advance towards them for a parley, they separated without deigning a reply to our salutation--the elder and more highly decorated, galloped off towards the city with a small escort, while the other briskly crossed our front at the head of his squadron and entered the forest nearer the entrance of the valley. This opening in the hills, was scarcely a quarter of a mile wide, and but a few minutes elapsed before we saw a single horseman cross it toward the wood on the opposite side. Presently, another troop of horse of the same uniform appearance as the first, were seen passing a glade of the wood which the single horseman had penetrated, and it thus became evident that a manoeuvre had already been effected to cut off our retreat. The mountains surrounding the whole area of the plain, were absolutely perpendicular for three-fourths of their altitude, which was no where less than a thousand feet; and from many parts of their wildly piled outline, huge crags projected in monstrous mammoth forms, as if to plunge to the billows of forest beneath. At no point of this vast impassible boundary was there a chasm or declivity discernable by which we could make our exit, except the one thus formidably intercepted.