"Ah!!" and Coronado smiled mysteriously. "There is no danger. We are under the protection of the American eagle. Moreover, hospitalities have been interchanged." Next the experiences of the last twenty-four hours, first Mrs. Stanley's version and then Coronado's, were related. He had little to tell: there had been a quiet night and much slumber; the Moquis had stood guard and been every way friendly; the Apaches had left the valley and gone to parts unknown. The truth is that he had slept more than half of the time. Journeying, fighting, watching, and anxiety had exhausted him as well as every one else, and enabled him to plunge into slumber with a delicious consciousness of it as a restorative and a luxury. Now that he was himself again, he wondered at what he had been. For two days he had faced death, fighting like a legionary or a knight-errant, and in short playing the hero. What was there in his nature, or what had there been in his selfish and lazy life, that was akin to such fine frenzies? As he remembered it all, he hardly knew himself for the same old Coronado. Well, being safe again, he was a devoted lover again, and he must get on with his courtship. Considering that Clara and Thurstane, if left much together here in the pueblo, might lead each other into the temptation of a betrothal, he decided that he must be at hand to prevent such a catastrophe, and so here he was. Presently he began to talk to the girl in Spanish; then he begged the aunt's pardon for speaking what was to her an unknown tongue; but he had, he said, some family matters for his cousin's ear; would Mrs. Stanley be so good as to excuse him? "Certainly," returned that far-sighted woman, guessing what the family matters might be, and approving them. "By the way, I have something to do," she added. "I must attend to it immediately." By this time she remembered all about her nightmare, and she was in a state of inflammation as to the Moqui religion. If the dream were true, if the Moquis were in the habit of sacrificing strong-minded women or any kind of women, she must know it and put a stop to it. Stepping into the central room, where Thurstane and Glover were smoking with a number of Indians, she said in her prompt, positive way, "I must look into these people's religion. Does anybody know whether they have any?" The Lieutenant had a spark or two of information on the subject. Through the medium of a Navajo who had strolled into the pueblo, and who spoke a little Spanish and a good deal of Moqui, he had been catechising the chief as to manners, customs, etc. "I understand," he said, "that they have a sacred fire which they never suffer to go out. They are believed to worship the sun, like the ancient Aztecs. The sacred fire seems to confirm the suspicion." "Sacred fire! vestal virgins, too, I suppose! can they be Romans?" reasoned Aunt Maria, beginning to doubt Prince Madoc.