There had been a curious impression upon the minds of some American statesmen that General Santa Anna would return to his native country with a purpose of making peace. It was for that reason that he was permitted to pass unhindered through the blockading fleet in the Gulf, but he had no such idea in his cunning and ambitious head. His real objects in returning were to take vengeance upon his enemies, to restore himself to the supreme power which he had lost by the revolution of 1840, and, for that purpose, to prosecute the war with the United States with all possible vigor. His personal feeling in that matter might have been understood by recalling the fact that his downfall had resulted from his severe defeat in attempting to conquer the earlier American settlers in Texas. On his arrival in Vera Cruz, on the 16th of August, a proclamation which he at once issued, denouncing alike the monarchical ambition of President Paredes and the wicked invasion of Mexico by the armies of the northern republic, opened the eyes of all concerned. When, however, with all the troops at his disposal, he slowly approached the city of Mexico, he put on a cloak of patriotic moderation. The existing government, consisting of Vice-President Bravo and the Congress, had succeeded in imprisoning and then in banishing their would-be emperor, Paredes. They now, as the returning exile drew near the capital, offered him a temporary dictatorship of the disordered national affairs, but he modestly replied that he did not desire so much. He had returned, he said, as a pure and unselfish patriot, only to serve his country. All that he would be willing to accept would be the absolute control of the army, as if any power worth speaking of might be supposed to remain outside of his bayonets and lances. This small request was readily granted, and from that hour onward he was, for the time being, more completely the dictator of Mexico than he or any other man had ever been before. He entered the city and assumed command on the 15th of September. Only a week later, on the 22d and 23d, the fall and surrender of Monterey strengthened his hold upon the people, for it made them feel more keenly than ever their need of a good general. He certainly did act with great energy, for, as early as the 8th of October, he had advanced with his army as far north as San Luis Potosi, and was straining every possible resource to prepare for his coming conflict with General Taylor. It is said that he even mortgaged his private property to obtain the money required for his military supplies.

During all these weeks and months there had been stormy times in the Congress of the United States, and the war of the politicians was by no means ended. General Winfield Scott, however, had been left at the head of the army, with authority to invade Mexico in any manner he might choose, but with about half as many troops as he declared to be necessary for such an undertaking. It was late in December, 1846, when General Scott in person arrived at the mouth of the Rio Grande and assumed the direction of military operations. As he did not propose any considerable further advance into Mexico, except by way of Vera Cruz, he decided to take his best troops with him to that field of the coming campaign. This meant that General Taylor was to lose nearly all his regular army men and officers, their places being filled, as to numbers, by new regiments of exceedingly brave but untried volunteers. He was therefore left to face, with raw troops, any intended onslaught of Santa Anna, who would bring with him several times as large a force, of all sorts, most of it composed of recent levies, imperfectly organized and disciplined. It remained to be seen which of the two kinds of men, the Mexican Indian or the American rifleman, could be the more rapidly changed into a trained soldier, fitted for a hard day’s fight.

Throughout all the interior of Mexico there was a fair degree of peace and order, although robber bands were reported here and there. No signs of a coming revolution appear to have been discovered, for nearly all the great leaders who might have set one on foot were either banished or shot, or were serving in Santa Anna’s army, half hoping for his defeat and destruction that he might be taken out of the way of their ambitions.

There came one cloudless day near the end of February, when a kind of cool and beautiful summer seemed to rule over all the fair land of Anahuac, except among the snow-clad Cordilleras. There were roses in bloom in many gardens of the city of Mexico, and all things in and about the national capital wore an exceedingly peaceful air. The very guards at the citadel were pacing listlessly up and down, as if they were lazily aware that all evil-minded gringos and other foes of their comfort were several hundreds of miles away. At the city gates there were no sentries of any kind, and a young fellow who rode in on a spirited pony, at an hour or so after noon, was not questioned by anybody as to where he came from or what he was doing there. He cast sharp glances in all directions as he rode onward, but he seemed to have no need for inquiring his way. He went steadily, moreover, as if he might have business rather than pleasure on his hands, and he did not pull in his pony until he had reached the front of the Paez mansion. There was no one on the piazza but a short, fat old woman, in a blazing red cotton gown, who sprang to her feet almost as if he had frightened her, exclaiming:

“SeÑor Carfora!”

“Dola!” he responded, sharply. “Don’t say another loud word! Are either of the seÑoras at home? I must see them right away.”

“Oh, yes!” she said, turning to run into the house. “I will tell them. They are in the parlor, and the seÑorita.”

Down sprang Ned and hitched his pony to a post, but then he hurried through the front door as quickly as Dola herself had done. Perhaps it was well that he should get in without being recognized by too many eyes. He did not have to actually get into the parlor before he was welcomed, for a light form sprang out into the hall, and Felicia herself shouted, eagerly:

“Oh, SeÑor Carfora! Are you here? This is wonderful!”

“SeÑorita,” he interrupted her, “I have letters for your mother and SeÑora Paez. Where are they?”

“They are right here,” she said, “but we have letters, too. All the flags in the city are out and they are firing salutes of rejoicing.”

“I saw the flags,” he said, “and I heard some firing, but what on earth are they rejoicing over? Is there any news?”

The two grown-up women were standing behind her, with faces in which there was no joy whatever when Felicia exultingly told him:

“Why, have not you heard? General Santa Anna has beaten your gringo army all to pieces. The United States fleet is coming to Vera Cruz with another army, and the American soldiers will not dare to come on shore. All they can do will be to sit there in their ships and look at the city.”

“Come in, SeÑor Carfora,” said SeÑora Paez. “I cannot tell you how glad we are to see you. Yes, we have very important letters. I may suppose that yours are from the general. Please let me have them.”

“Do, SeÑor Carfora!” said SeÑora Tassara. “I cannot wait a moment. We will retire to read them, and, while we are gone, Felicia may tell you all the news from the great battle at the north.”

“Yes, so I will,” she exclaimed. “And I want him to tell me all about the places he has been in, and what he has been doing.”

In a moment more they two were alone in the parlor, and she was repeating to him the substance of Santa Anna’s report of the manner in which, at the hard-fought battle of Angostura, or Buena Vista, on the 22d of February, he had shattered the American army under General Taylor. He had, he said, effectively prevented its further advance into Mexico, and there was really a strong appearance of truth in his way of presenting the consequences of the battle, for the American army seemed to have retreated. Horse after horse had been ridden to death in taking such great tidings to the city of Mexico, and, for the hour, at least, the great Mexican commander was more firmly fixed in supreme power than ever.

Of course, the triumphant bulletin did not make any mention of the fact that General Taylor had had no intention of advancing any further, being under express orders from General Scott not to do so, and that Santa Anna’s well-planned and at first nearly successful attempt to crush the northern invaders had really proved a failure. Ned Crawford listened to Felicia’s enthusiastic account of the battle with a curious question in his mind which he was too polite to utter.

“Why,” he thought, “if Santa Anna was so completely victorious, did he not make General Taylor surrender?”

There was no one to inform Ned that the Mexican commander had invited General Taylor to do so before the fight was half over, and that the stubborn old American had unkindly refused the invitation. At this moment, however, the seÑorita’s tongue began to busy itself with quite another matter. The United States fleet, under Commodore Connor, had, indeed, begun to arrive in front of Vera Cruz on the 18th of February, with a vast convoy of transport ships under its protection, having on board the army of General Scott. Neither Ned nor the seÑorita was aware, however, how many important questions have to be answered before so many military passengers might undertake to land, with all their baggage, within possible reach of the artillery of an enemy. Felicia, for her part, was positive that they all were too badly scared by the Castle of San Juan de Ulua and by the bad news from Buena Vista to so much as try to make a landing.

“General Santa Anna himself is now marching down to meet them,” she told him, “with his whole victorious army, and he will crush them as fast as they can get out of their ships.”

Owing to the grand reports from their army, this was precisely the idea which was forming in the minds of all the people of Mexico.

“Oh, SeÑorita Felicia!” said Ned, as if he were quite willing to change the subject. “I’ve had a wonderful time. I’ve been travelling, travelling, travelling, everywhere with the general.”

“Tell me all about it!” she commanded him. “I want to know. It seems to me as if I had been shut up here and had not seen anybody.”

“Well, I can’t tell it all just now,” he said, “but when we left here we hurried all the way to Oaxaca. Then we stayed there awhile, among his own people, and nobody gave us any trouble. No, I mustn’t forget one thing, though. A band of those mountain robbers came one night, and we had an awful fight with them—”

“Did you kill any of them?” she asked, hastily. “They all ought to be killed. They are ready to murder anybody else.”

“Well,” said Ned, “we beat them, and ten of them were shot. I was firing away all the while, but I don’t know if I hit any of them. It was too dark to tell. The rest of them got away. But I’ve hunted deer, and I killed a good many of them. I shot a lynx, too, and a lot of other game. There’s the best kind of fishing on the general’s estates. I like fishing. Then we went south, to the Yucatan line, and I saw some queer old ruins. After that, the general’s business took him away up north of Oaxaca, and I went with him, and I saw half the States of Mexico before we finished the trip. I’ve seen the silver mines and Popocatepetl and Istaccihuatl, and I don’t care to ever see any higher mountains than they are.”

“I have seen Popocatepetl,” she said, “and it almost made me have the headache. They say it is full of sulphur, to make gunpowder with.”

Before she could tell anything more about the possible uses of the tall, old volcano, her mother reËntered the parlor.

“SeÑor Carfora,” she said, “Felicia will have to give you up. Here are some letters for you that came while you were absent. You had better read them now, for I cannot say how long it will be best for you to remain here. Step this way a moment, if you will.”

Ned followed her, all in a sudden whirl of excitement at the unexpected prospect of hearing from his far-away home, but she still held his promised envelopes in her own hand, while she said to him:

“My dear young friend, you know that Colonel Tassara is with his regiment. He was in the thickest of the fight at Angostura. He was wounded, but he hopes to recover soon, and we have not told Felicia. He writes me that it was really a lost battle, and that the fall of Santa Anna is surely coming, but that nobody can foretell what course he will take, cruel or otherwise, when he and his army return to fight with General Scott, on the road from the sea to this city. Go and read your letters, and then I will see you again.”

Felicia had to give him up, and away he went. The best place to read home letters seemed to him to be the library, and when he entered the dim old room, he half imagined that the man in armor nodded at him, and tried to say how d’ye do. After that, Ned almost forgot that he was in Mexico, while he devoured the news from home. It was a grand thing to learn, too, that the letters which he had feared would never get to New York had all been carefully delivered under the kindly care of the British consular system. He had never before felt quite so high an admiration for the British Empire as he acquired just then.

“I’ll do something good for the next Englishman I get hold of!” he declared, with energy, and then he sat still and stared around the room.

“It was just as well,” he said, “that I did not stay here and try to read all those books. I read enough about the ancient times, too. What father wanted me to know about is Mexico as it is now, and I’ve seen a great deal of it. What I want to see next is our army, and I’m going to find my way to Vera Cruz. Then I’ll get on board an American ship, somehow or other. I wonder if the Mexican officers will manage to arrest me between this and the seacoast.”

That was a point worth thinking of, for General Zuroaga had told him very plainly that some ignorant or overhasty patriot might easily find an excuse for calling him a spy, and having him shot at a moment’s notice. He did not have a long time to consider that matter, however, for the door opened, and the two seÑoras walked in, with clouded faces.

“SeÑor Carfora,” said SeÑora Tassara, “you will have no time to lose. General Zuroaga is right, and his letter must go at once to his friend, General Morales, who is now in command at Vera Cruz. So must one from my own husband. It is important, for the best interest of Mexico, that Morales should know the whole truth. That is, he must be informed that he cannot expect any help from Santa Anna’s beaten army. Are you too tired to set out immediately? I can give you a fresh horse.”

“I’ll go!” exclaimed Ned. “My pony isn’t tired. He is a first-rate traveller. I want something to eat, though, and I wish I knew whether or not the army patrols will stop me on the way.”

“I can take care of that,” said SeÑora Paez. “I have had to send special messengers before this. You will be able to show a government pass.”

As she spoke, she held out to him a sealed envelope. Where or how she had obtained such a thing, she did not explain, but it was an official envelope, and on it was a printed lettering which might have been translated: “Government Business. From the Headquarters of the Army. Despatches from His Excellency, General Bravo.” In her own handwriting was added, moreover: “To His Excellency, General Morales, Vera Cruz.”

“There!” she said. “If it becomes necessary, show that, and any man hindering you will be promptly punished. Do not show it if you can help it, however, for there are many kinds of army officers nowadays.”

“I have seen some of them,” said Ned, but what he was really thinking about most seriously, at that moment, was the supper he had asked for, and he was well pleased to be led down into the dining-room.