Under these circumstances, Jack did not wonder that Cocom was cautious, and though for the moment the attitude of the old Indian appeared anything but friendly, Jack quite relied on him to aid his escape. He was anxious to escape from this buried city, where he was threatened with so terrible a fate; he was longing to return to Tlatonac for the purpose of reassuring his friends, who he knew would be terribly put out by his disappearance at Acauhtzin; and, above all, he was anxious to be free so as to search for Dolores. In Jack's opinion she was at Acauhtzin, as a man so vile as Don Hypolito could no longer be believed. If she was not in the power of the rebel leader, she would have been with the Indians. Yet here was Jack in the very heart of this aboriginal civilisation, in the stronghold of the opal, yet he neither saw her nor heard anything of her. He questioned Cocom, but that wily old man replied that he knew nothing, and as Don Hypolito had admitted that he knew where she was, Jack felt sure that the poor girl was held a prisoner by the Mestizo at Acauhtzin. He was therefore anxious to escape, and get back to Tlatonac, for the purpose of urging on the war with all possible speed, so that the northern capital should be invested within a reasonable time, and Dolores rescued from her terrible position. Consequently, escape was his one aim; but he saw plainly that without assistance it would be impossible to leave this city of the opal, buried as it was in the savage solitudes of primeval forests. That this famous opal shrine was in Cholacaca he knew perfectly well, but as he had been brought hither in an unconscious state, he was quite at a loss to lay his finger on the precise locality. Cholacaca, east to west, was two hundred miles from mountains to sea, so the city of the opal could not be situated out of this radius. It might be fifty, a hundred, a hundred and fifty miles from the sea, and Jack, knowing by his pocket-compass in which direction to go, calculated that if he marched due east he could not fail to reach the coast. Once there, and he could soon pick up a canoe or some light boat, in which he could get in due time to Tlatonac.