muttered, as if he did not care to speak any louder. "I
don't believe General Taylor's men would care to march far with as much
iron as that on them--not in hot weather. But the old Aztecs didn't have
anything that would go through that kind of uniform. If Cortes and his
men wore it, there is no wonder that they went on killing the Indians
without being much hurt themselves."

In fact, not all of them had been dressed up in precisely such a manner,
although they did wear armor.

Ned examined the whole affair, piece by piece, from head to foot, and
then he turned away from his inspection, for the room behind him was
getting dim and it was time for him to look at his lamp. He took out a
match as he went toward the table at the window, and in a moment more he
was busy with a wick which seemed to be determined not to burn for him.

"It's an old whale-oil lamp," he remarked. "Mother had one, once. I
remember seeing her try to light it and it would sputter for ever so
long. There! It's beginning to kindle, but it's too big for me to carry
around and hunt for books with. I wish I had a smaller one. Hullo!
Here's one of the biggest of those old concerns, right here on the
table."

It was a folio bound in vellum, and when he opened it a great deal of
dust arose from the cover which banged down. Then Ned uttered a loud
exclamation, and was glad he had succeeded in lighting the lamp, for
there before his eyes was a vividly colored picture of a most
extraordinary description. Moreover, it unfolded, so that it was almost
twice the size, length, and width of the book pages.

"They are all in Spanish," he said, "but I guess I can read them.
They're more than a hundred years old. People don't print such books,
nowadays. Nobody would have time enough to read them, I suppose, and
they couldn't sell 'em cheap enough. This is wonderful! It's a picture
of the old Mexican god, Huitzilopochtli."

There was an explanatory inscription, and the artist had pictured the
terrible deity sitting upon a throne of state, gorgeously arrayed in
gold and jewels, and watching with a smile of serene satisfaction the
sacrifice of some unfortunate human victims on the altar in the
foreground at the right. One of the priests attending at the altar had
just cut open the bosom of a tall man lying before him, and was tossing
a bleeding heart upon the smoking fire, where other similar offerings
were already burning.

"That must have been a horrible kind of