named Vaalpeor, a young man of superior intellect and attainments, Velasquez soon cultivated a friendly and confidential acquaintance, which proved reciprocal and faithful. And while Huertis was devoting all his time and energies to the antiquities, hieroglyphics, ethnology, science, pantheism, theogony, arts, manufactures, and social institutions of this unknown city and people, the ear of this young pagan priest was as eagerly imbibing, from the wiley lips of Velasquez, a similar knowledge of the world at large, to him equally new and enchanting. If Huertis had toiled so severely, and hazarded so much, both as to himself and companions, to acquire a knowledge of this one city and people, it soon became clear to the penetrating mind of Velasquez, that Vaalpeor possessed enough both of mental ambition and personal energy to incur equal toil and risk to learn the wonders of the cities and races of the greater nations of mankind. Indeed, this desire evidently glowed in his breast with a consuming fervor, and when Velasquez, after due observation proposed the liberation of the whole expedition, with Vaalpeor himself, as its protected companion, the now consciously imprisoned pagan, horror-stricken at first, regarded the proposition with complacency, and finally, with a degree of delight, regardless of consequences. It was, however, mutually agreed that the design should be kept secret from Huertis, until ripe for success. A serious obstacle existed in his plighted guardianship of the Kaana children, whom he could abandon only with his life; but even this was not deemed insurmountable. In the meantime, Huertis, to facilitate his own objects, had prevailed upon his entire party to conform in dress and habits with the community in which they lived. The city was surrounded on all sides by a lofty colonade, sustaining the upper esplanade of the city walls, and forming a broad covered walk beneath, in which the population could promenade, sheltered from sun and shower. In these places of general resort, the new citizens appeared daily, until they had become familiarly known to the greater part of the eighty-five thousand inhabitants of the city. Huertis, moreover, had formed domestic and social connexions; was the welcome guest of families of the highest rank, who were fascinated with the information he afforded them of the external world; had made tacit converts to liberty of many influential persons; had visited each of the four grand temples which stood in the centre of the several quadrangular divisions of the city, and externally conformed to their idolatrous worship. He had even been admitted into some of the most sacred mysteries of these temples, while Velasquez, more retired, and avowedly more scrupulous, was content to receive the knowledge thus acquired, in long conversations by the sick couch of poor Hammond, now rapidly declining to the grave.