When the horses had been hobbled in an excavation at the foot of the teocali, the warriors placed the prisoners in their midst, scaled the bramble and cactus covered steps that led to the top of the artificial hill, and on reaching the temple, after lighting several fires to prepare their meal, they cut down a quantity of branches, which they intertwined so as to form a species of roof over one of the halls of the temple. There, at a signal from the chief, the two ladies were installed, who, however precarious this shelter might be, were glad to take refuge in it, and escape for awhile from the stern glances of their ferocious conquerors, and recover from the terrible shock they had endured. Doña Emilia's first care so soon as she was alone with her daughter, whose weakness was extreme, was to lay her on a pile of furs which the chief, doubtless through a feeling of compassion, had ordered to be placed by the fire. The state in which the young lady was, was really alarming. The prostration which had fallen on her after the snare to which she had fallen victim, was succeeded by a violent fever mingled with delirious and nervous attacks, which not only threatened her reason, but caused apprehensions for her life; at any rate there was reason to fear that her health would never entirely recover from the shock given to her system by the terror she had felt, and the extraordinary fatigue she had endured during nearly twenty hours; in spite of the sort of brutal gallantry with which the chief had tried to come to her help by ordering his men not to hurry, and by trying not only to pay the captives the attentions of which his rough character was capable, but by giving them all the relief he was able to offer them under the circumstances. Doña Emilia did not know what means she should employ to calm her daughter's terrifying nervous excitement. Alone among savages, whom she justly regarded as implacable foes, wanting the remedies which were necessary for her poor child, she could only groan and hold her to her heart to prevent her dashing her head against the wall in one of these nervous attacks. Doña Emilia passed the whole night without sleep, constantly watching over the girl whose madness had assumed a startling character, and who no longer recognizing her mother, and unconscious of the place where she was, made the strangest remarks to her, and asked her the most singular questions with that volubility which fever produces.