The sun of the next morning arose upon a great deal of doubt and uncertainty in many places. Some of the soldiers of General Taylor’s army were altogether uncertain into what bushes of the neighboring chaparral the norther had blown their tents, and they went out in search of their missing cotton duck shelters. The entire force encamped at the Rio Grande border was in the dark as to what it might next be ordered to do, and all sorts of rumors went around from regiment to regiment, as if the rumor manufacturer had gone crazy. General Taylor himself was sure of at least the one point, that he had no right to cross the muddy river in front of him and make a raid into Mexico until he should hear again from the government at Washington, and be officially informed that the war, which he was carrying on so well, had really begun. He and all his army believed that it was already going on, and they grumbled discontentedly that they were compelled to remain in camp, and watch for ranchero lancers on Texan soil, if it was legally Texan at all, until permission arrived to strike their tents and march forward.

The news of the fighting and of what were described as the great battles on the Mexican border had reached New Orleans and Key West. It was travelling northward at full speed, but it had not yet been heard by the government or by the people of the North and West. None of these had as yet so much as imagined what a telegraphic news-bringer might be, and so they could not even wish that they had one, or they would surely have done so. The uncertainties of that morning, therefore, hampered all the councils of the nation. Almost everybody believed that there would soon be a war, although a great many men were strongly opposed to the idea of having one. Taking the war for granted, however, there were doubts and differences of opinion among both military and unmilitary men as to how it was to be carried on. Some were opposed to anything more than a defence of the Rio Grande boundary-line, but these moderate persons were hooted at by the out-and-out war party, whom nothing promised to satisfy but an invasion which intended the capture of the city of Mexico. Nothing less than this, they said, would obtain the objects of the war, and secure a permanent peace at the end of it. Then, supposing such an invasion to be decided on, an important question arose as to how and where the Mexican territory might best be entered by a conquering army. Many declared that General Taylor’s forces were already at the right place for pushing ahead, but the commander-in-chief, General Winfield Scott, by all odds the best general the country possessed, responded that the march proposed for Taylor was too long, too difficult, and that it was likely to result in disaster. The shorter and only practicable route, he asserted, was by way of the sea and Vera Cruz. He was also known to be politically opposed to any war whatever. Thereupon, a number of prominent men, who disagreed with him, set themselves at work to have him removed or put aside, that a commander might take his place who was not so absurdly under the influence of military science, common sense, and of the troubles which might be encountered in marching seven hundred miles or more through an enemy’s country. There were, it was said, eloquent politicians, who did not know how to drill an “awkward squad,” but who felt sure of their ability to beat Old Scott in such an agreeable affair as a military picnic party to the city of Mexico.

The young military scholars in the camp near Fort Brown were ignorant of all this. They were satisfied with their present commander, as well they might be, for he was a good one. They were satisfied with themselves, and were enthusiastically ready to fight anything which should be put in front of them. They were dreadfully dissatisfied with camp life, however, and especially with the fact that they and all the other raw troops of that army were forced to undergo a great deal of drill and discipline in hot weather. Perhaps, if this had not been given them, they would hardly have rendered so good an account of themselves in the severe tests of soldiership which they underwent a few months later.

The first doubt that came to Ned Crawford that morning, as his eyes opened and he began to get about half-awake, related to his hammock and to how on earth he happened to be in it. Swift memories followed then of the norther, the perilous pull ashore, the arrival at the Tassara place, and the people he had met there. He recalled also something about silver coffee-urns and Moorish warriors, but the next thing, he was out upon the floor, and his head seemed to buzz like a beehive with inquiries concerning his immediate future.

“Here I am,” he said aloud. “I’m in Mexico; in Vera Cruz; at this house with SeÑor Zuroaga; and I don’t know yet what’s become of the Goshawk. I don’t really ever expect to see her again, but I hope that Captain Kemp and the sailors didn’t get themselves drowned. I must see about that, first thing. Then I suppose I must see the American consul, write another letter home, see the merchants our goods were delivered to,—and what I’m to do after that I don’t know.”

There was a loud rap at his door just then, and in a moment more he was almost repeating that speech to SeÑor Zuroaga.

“Please say very little to Colonel Tassara or anybody else in this house,” replied the senor, emphatically. “Get used, as soon as you can, to being called Carfora. We must make you look like a young Mexican right away. I’ve bought a rig which will fit you. It is well that you are so dark-complexioned. A red-haired fellow would never pass as you will. All the American residents of Vera Cruz are already under military protection, and I am glad there are so few of them, for there are said to have been two or three assassinations. Part of the mountain men who are loafing in town just now are wild Indians, as reckless and cruel as any of your Sioux warriors on a war-path. Come along to breakfast. You won’t meet the ladies this time, but I believe the seÑora and seÑorita like you a little, because you had the good taste to admire their silver and china.”

“Oh, that old coffee-urn!” said Ned. “Well, it’s as fine as anything I ever saw, even in a jewelry window.”

“Yes,” laughed the seÑor, “but the seÑora wants to have the American consul killed because he told her she had better have that thing melted and made over into one of the modern patterns. She will never forgive him. Tell her again, when you have a chance, that the old-time Seville silversmiths could beat anything we have nowadays, and she will love you. I do not really believe myself that we are getting much ahead of those ancient artists. They were wonderful designers.”

Ned was willing to believe that they were, and he made up his mind to praise SeÑora Tassara’s pet urn to the best of his ability.

He was not to have an opportunity for doing so immediately. Their breakfast was ready for them in the dining-room, but they were allowed to eat it by themselves. It seemed to Ned a very good one, but several times he found himself turning away from it to stare at the silver marvel and at the weapons on the walls. There was no apparent reason for haste, but neither of them cared to linger, and before long they were out on the piazza in front, Zuroaga with his hat pulled down to his eyes and his coat collar up. Ned was at once confirmed in his previous idea that the house was anything but new, and to that he added the conviction that it was much larger than it had appeared to be in the night. He believed, too, that it must have cost a deal of money to build it long ago. He had only a moment for that calculation, however, for his next glance went out toward the gulf, and he came near to being astonished. The path which he had followed in coming up from the shore had been a steep one, and he was now standing at a place from which he had a pretty good view of the tossing water between the mainland and the castle of San Juan de Ulua. The old fortress was there, unharmed by the norther, but not in any direction, as far as his eyes could reach, was there any sign of a ship, at anchor or otherwise.

“SeÑor!” he exclaimed. “What has become of them? They are all gone! Do you suppose they have been wrecked?”

“Not all of them, by any means,” replied the seÑor, but he also was searching the sea with a serious face. “As many as could lift their anchors in time to make a good offing before the norther came were sure to do so. If there were any that did not succeed, I can’t say where they may have gone to just now.”

“The Goshawk—” began Ned, but the seÑor gripped his arm hard, while he raised his right hand and pointed up the road.

“Silence!” he commanded, in a sharp whisper. “Look! there he comes. Don’t even call him by his name. Wait and hear what he has to say. He can tell us what has become of the bark. They are a used-up lot of men.”

So they were, the five who now came walking slowly along from somewhere or other on the coast upon which the disastrous storm had blown.

“Captain Kemp and the crew of his life-boat,” thought Ned, but he obeyed the seÑor at first, and was silent until the haggard-looking party arrived and came to a halt in front of him. Then, however, he lost his prudence for a moment, and anxiously inquired:

“Were any of you drowned?”

“Not any of us that are here,” responded the captain, grimly. “No, nor any other of the Goshawk men, but there are more wrecks in sight below, and I don’t know how many from them got ashore. Our bark stranded this side of them, and she’s gone all to pieces. We took to the life-boat in time, but we’ve had a hard pull of it. We went ashore through the breakers, about six miles below this, and here we are, but I don’t want to ever pass such another night. I’m going on down to the consul’s now, to report, and Ned had better be there as soon as he can. Then, the sooner he’s out o’ Vera Cruz, the better for him and all of us.”

“I think so myself,” said SeÑor Zuroaga. “Don’t even stay here for breakfast. Nobody from here must come to the consul’s with SeÑor Carfora.”

“Of course not,” said the captain, wearily, and away he went, although Ned felt as if he were full to bursting with the most interesting kind of questions concerning the captain’s night in the life-boat and the sad fate of the swift and beautiful Goshawk.

“Come into the house,” said the seÑor, “and put on your Mexican rig. I have a message from Colonel Guerra that we must get away to-night. I must not bring any peril upon the Tassara family. Up to this hour no enemy knows that I was a passenger on the powder-boat, as they call it.”

“All right,” said Ned. “I’ll write one more letter home. I couldn’t get out of the city in any other way just now, and I want to see Mexico.”

That idea was growing upon him rapidly, but his next errand was to the seÑor’s own room, to put on what he called his disguise. He followed his friend to a large, handsome chamber in the further end of the house, and, as he entered it, his first thought was:

“Hullo! are they getting ready for a fight?”

In the corners of the room and leaning against the walls here and there were weapons enough to have armed half a company of militia, if the soldiers did not care what kinds of weapons they were to carry, for the guns and swords and pistols were of all patterns except those of the present day. Ned saw at least one rusty firelock, which put him in mind of pictures he had seen of the curious affairs the New England fathers carried when they went to meeting on Sunday. He had no time to examine them, however, for here were his new clothes, and he must be in them without delay. He admired each piece, as he put it on, and then one look into the seÑor’s mirror convinced him that he was completely disguised. He had been turned into a somewhat stylish young Mexican, from his broad-brimmed straw hat to his Vera Cruz made shoes. He still wore a blue jacket, but this one was short, round-cornered, and had bright silver buttons. His new trousers were wide at the bottoms, with silver-buttoned slashes on the outsides below the knees. He had not worn suspenders on shipboard, but now his belt was of yellow leather and needlessly wide, with a bright buckle and a sword-catch on the left side. As to this matter, the seÑor showed him a short, straight, wide-bladed sort of cutlas, which he called a machete.

“That is to be yours,” he said. “You need not carry it in town, but you will as soon as we get away. You will have pistols, too, and a gun. It won’t do to go up the road to Oaxaca unarmed. Now you may make the best of your way to the consul’s, and I’ll stay here to finish getting ready.”

He appeared to be laboring under a good deal of excitement, and so, to tell the truth, was the disguised young American. Out he went into the hall, trying hard to be entirely collected and self-possessed, but it was only to be suddenly halted. Before him stood the stately SeÑora Tassara, and clinging to her was the very pretty SeÑorita Felicia, both of them staring, open-eyed, at the change in his uniform. The seÑorita was of about fourteen, somewhat pale, with large, brilliant black eyes, and she was a very frank, truthful girl, for she exclaimed:

“Oh, mother, do look at him! But it does not make a Mexican of him. He’s a gringo, and he would fight us if he had a chance. I want them all to be killed!”

“No, my dear,” said the seÑora, with a pleasant laugh. “SeÑor Carfora will not fight us. He and his ship brought powder for Colonel Guerra and the army. I am sorry he must leave us. You must shake hands with him.”

“Oh, no!” said the wilful Felicia, spitefully. “I don’t want to shake hands with him. He is one of our enemies.”

“No, I’m not!” stammered Ned. “But did you know that our ship was wrecked in the norther? If you had been on board of her when she went ashore, you would have been drowned. The men in the life-boat had a hard time in getting ashore. I’m glad you were at home.”

“There, dear,” said her mother. “That is polite. You heard what SeÑor Zuroaga said about the wrecks. They were terrible! Can you not say that you are glad SeÑor Carfora was not drowned?”

“No, mother,” persisted Felicia. “I’ll say I wish he had been drowned, if—if he could have swum ashore afterward. Good enough for him.”

SeÑora Tassara laughed merrily, as she responded:

“You are a dreadfully obstinate young patriot, my darling. But you must be a little more gracious. The gringo armies will never come to Vera Cruz. They are away up north on the Rio Grande.”

“Well, mother, I will a little,” said the seÑorita, proudly. “SeÑor Carfora, your generals will be beaten all to pieces. You wait till you see our soldiers. You haven’t anything like them. They are as brave as lions. My father is a soldier, and he is to command a regiment. I wish I were a man to go and fight.”

Her eyes were flashing and she looked very warlike, but the only thing that poor Ned could think of to say just then was:

“SeÑora Tassara, if you are not careful, somebody will get in some day and steal your beautiful coffee-urn.”

“Ah me!” sighed the seÑora. “This has been attempted, my young friend. Thieves have been killed, too, in trying to carry off the Tassara plate. There would be more like it, in some places, if so much had not been made plunder of and melted up in our dreadful revolutions. Some of them were only great robberies. I understand that you must go to your business now, but we shall see you again this evening.”

“Good morning, SeÑora Tassara,” said Ned, as he bowed and tried to walk backward toward the outer door. “Good morning, SeÑorita Tassara. You would feel very badly this morning if you had been drowned last night.”

The last thing he heard, as he reached the piazza, was a ringing peal of laughter from the seÑora, but he believed that he had answered politely.

He knew his way to the office of the American consul, and the distance was not great in so small a town, but as he drew near it, he saw that there was a strong guard of soldiers in front of the building. They were handsomely uniformed regulars from the garrison of San Juan de Ulua, and there was cause enough for their being on duty. All up and down the street were scattered groups of sullen-looking men, talking and gesticulating. None of them carried guns, but every man of them had a knife at his belt, and not a few of them were also armed with machetes of one form or another. They would have made a decidedly dangerous mob against anything but the well-drilled and fine-looking guards who were protecting the consulate. Ned remembered what Felicia had said about her soldiers, and he did not know how very different were these disciplined regulars from the great mass of the levies which were to be encountered by the troops of the United States. He was admiring them and he was thinking of battles and generals, when one of the most ferocious-looking members of the mob came jauntily sauntering along beside him. He was a powerfully built man, almost black with natural color and sunburn. He was not exactly ragged, but he was barefooted, and his broad-brimmed sombrero was by no means new. A heavy machete hung from his belt, and he appeared to be altogether an undesirable new acquaintance. Ned looked up at him almost nervously, for he did not at all like the aspect of affairs in that street. He was thinking:

“I guess they were right about the excitement of the people. This isn’t any place for fellows like me. I must get out of Vera Cruz as soon as I can. It’s a good thing that I’m disguised. I must play Mexican.”

At that moment a good-natured smile spread across the gloomy face of his unexpected companion, and he said, in a low tone of voice:

“Say nothing, SeÑor Carfora. Walk on into the consulate. I belong to General Zuroaga. There are four more of his men here. We have orders to take care of you. You are the young Englishman that brought us the powder. There was not a pound to be bought in Vera Cruz, but some of those fellows would knife you for a gringo.”

Quite a useless number of queer Spanish oaths were sprinkled in among his remarks, but Ned did not mind them. He only nodded and strictly obeyed the injunction against talking, even while he was asking himself how on earth his friend, the seÑor, ever became a general. He concluded, for the moment, that it might be a kind of militia title, such as he had heard of in the United States. However that might be, he and his guide soon reached the door of the consulate, and he himself was promptly admitted, as if the keeper of the door had been expecting to see him. There were guards inside the house as well as in the street, and they motioned Ned on through a narrow entry-way, at the end of which was an open room. He passed on into this, and the next moment he was exclaiming:

“Hullo, Captain Kemp! I’m so glad you are here! What am I to do next?”

“Almost nothing at all,” said the captain, quietly. “Just sign your papers and get away. The consul himself has gone to the city of Mexico, with United States government despatches for President Paredes, and we shall finish our business as easy as rolling off a log. You have nothing to do with the wrecking of the Goshawk, for you weren’t on board when she parted her cable. But just look at those people!”

Ned did so, for the room, a large and well-furnished office, was almost crowded with Americans of all sorts, mostly men, whose faces wore varied expressions of deep anxiety.

“What are they all here for?” asked Ned.

“Safety!” growled the captain. “And to inquire how and when they can find their way out of this city of robbers. I hear that a whole regiment is to be on guard duty to-night, and that the mob is to be put down. If I ever see your father again, I’ll explain to him why I sent you away.”

Before Ned could make any further remarks, he was introduced to the vice-consul, a dapper, smiling little man, who did not appear to be in the least disturbed by his unpleasant surroundings. Almost a score of papers, larger and smaller, required the signature of the young supercargo of the unfortunate Goshawk. They were speedily signed, although without any clear idea in Ned’s mind as to what they all were for, and then Captain Kemp took him by the arm and led him away into a corner of the room.

“Ned, my boy,” he said, “you see how it is. You must keep away from the seacoast for awhile. After things are more settled, you can come back and get away on a British, or French, or Dutch vessel, if the port isn’t too closely blockaded. Whether I shall get out alive or not, I don’t know. You haven’t enough money. I’ll let you have a couple of hundred dollars more in Mexican gold. You’d better not let anybody suspect that you carry so much with you. This country contains too many patriots who would cut their own President’s throat for a gold piece. Don’t ever show more than one shiner at a time, or you may lose it all.”

Ned took the two little bags that were so cautiously delivered to him, and while he was putting them away in the inner pockets of his jacket, his mind was giving him vivid pictures of the knives and machetes and their bearers, whom he had seen in the street.

“Captain,” he said, “those fellows out there wouldn’t wait for any gold. A silver dollar would buy one of them.”

“Half a dollar,” replied the captain. “Not one of them is worth a shilling. They ought all to be shot. But look here. I mustn’t come to Colonel Tassara’s place again. I find that he is under some kind of suspicion already, and President Paredes makes short work of men whom he suspects of plotting against him. Go! Get home!”

“That’s just about what I’d like to do,” said Ned to himself, as he hurried out of the consulate, but the next moment his courage began to come back to him, for here was SeÑor Zuroaga’s ferocious-looking follower, and with him were four others, who might have been his cousins or his brothers, from their looks, for they all were Oaxaca Indians, of unmixed descent. Their tribe had faithfully served the children and grandchildren of Hernando Cortes, the Conquistador, from the day when he and his brave adventurers cut their way into the Tehuantepec valley.