Climb up our foes, Over the wall, Deep bit the swords, Fiercely the cannon spout fire; Yet 'neath our blows, Downward they fall, Traitorous hordes, In torment and blood to expire. Tim at once took his friends to his quarters, and made them comfortable, but scarcely had they finished a hurried meal, when an aide-de-camp arrived from General Gigedo requiring their presence without delay. As Peter had received a nasty blow on the head during the _mêlée_, Jack insisted that he should remain behind and rest himself. Peter feebly remonstrated against this arrangement, as he wanted to accompany his friends, but in the end was forced to yield to their insistence. Then Duval buckled on his sword, slipped his revolvers into his belt, and went off with Tim to report himself at head-quarters. Both of them were terribly alarmed about Philip. In the first burst of emotion Jack had deemed his friend dead; but, on looking at the matter calmly, it seemed probable that he would yet turn up well and unhurt. It was impossible that Indians, in whatever number, could utterly exterminate a body of disciplined troops amounting to a thousand men. Tim's opinion was that if they had been attacked and overpowered by strategy, they had fled to the nearest town for shelter. As he had marched overland with Colonel Garibay from Tlatonac, he knew the country better than did Jack, and proceeded to defend his theory of the reinforcements' safety, by describing the position of the towns. "It's a hundred miles or more as the crow flies from Tlatonac to this God-forsaken place. Within that limit are four towns, no less--one every twenty miles. When we marched south two weeks ago, we first went to Chichimec, then to Puebla de los Naranjos, which last one is midway. Hermanita is next, and then after dropping in at Centeotl, we came on to Janjalla!" "Still, if the Indians surprised them by night they might have surrounded and exterminated the whole lot. To my mind nothing is so dangerous as a despised enemy." "What!" cried Tim, with great contempt, "d'you mean to tell me that a lot of naked savages could manage that. By my soul, 'tis impossible!" "But, my dear fellow, the Indians are out in thousands. Cocom told me so." "They may be out in millions," retorted Tim, emphatically. "I tell you, Jack, they couldn't have killed all these men. A good number of them must have escaped to the nearest town, and, I'll lay my soul on it, that among those who got away is Philip. He wasn't born to be murdered by a lot of howling savages." "Well, let us hope so," replied Jack, who was beginning to take this comfortable view of things himself; "but, tell me, Tim, when the reinforcements didn't arrive, why did you not wire to Tlatonac?"