k of art.
Young was a good deal chagrined, however, because the picture of him
that the secretary had drawn was forwarded as a part of Tizoc's
despatches. He said that since he had set up a good likeness of himself,
it wasn't the square thing to send the King a bad one.

When the secretary, bearing the despatches, had departed, Tizoc
requested us to accompany him to the near-by guard-house, where we could
refresh ourselves by bathing, and where food and drink would be provided
for us. This order, for such it was, we obeyed gladly; for we were both
weary and hungry, and the prospect of what Young described as a good
wash and a square meal after it, was very pleasing to us. A detachment
of men from the guard-house, accoutred in the same handsome fashion as
Ixtlilton and his companion, had arrived while the secretary's
portrait-work was in progress; and I observed that all of these
guardsmen (excepting only Ixtlilton, whose skin was dark,) were much
lighter in color and more gracious in bearing than the men in the crowd
around us. So marked, indeed, was this difference that they seemed
scarcely to belong to the same race.

As we moved away through the opening that the crowd made for us, with a
platoon of guardsmen in advance, and another in our rear, Pablo touched
my arm and was about to speak to me; but before his mouth could open
there sounded suddenly from the hollow way in the mountain behind us a
mighty bray. "Ah, the little angel!" Pablo cried. "Hearken to him,
senor, calling to me." And so moved was Pablo by this evidence of El
Sabio's affection that only my firm grasp upon his arm restrained him
from attempting a dash through the guards to where the creature was
penned in by the metal bars.

Truly, there is no sound more terrifying to those who are strangers to
it than the braying of an ass; therefore, I was not at all surprised
that a very considerable part of the crowd incontinently took to its
heels; and I needed no better evidence of the bravery of the guardsmen
who composed our escort than the steadiness with which they faced about
in readiness to meet whatever danger might come forth from the gap in
the mountain in the wake of this great roaring. Yet what they saw there
was only the mild face of the Wise One extended towards us through the
opening in the bars.

To Tizoc, who was standing beside me, and who had not displayed even the
slightest tremor of alarm as the appalling noise had broken upon us, I
e