oing, who bore about them no appearance of
being worth the attention of the military authorities. Another and
another night in wayside farmhouses compelled him to admire more than
ever the simple ways and the sincere patriotism of the Mexican farmers.
All the while, however, his anxieties concerning the result of his
perilous errand were growing upon him, and he was obediently using up
his army pony. It was the forenoon of the third day before he was
aroused from his other thoughts into anything like enthusiasm for the
exceeding beauty of the luxuriant vegetation on either side of the road.

"Leaves! flowers! grass!" he exclaimed. "Oh, how beautiful they all are!
Summer here, and winter only a few miles away. Hurrah for the _tierra
caliente_! It's a bully place at this time o' year."

At all events, it was a pleasanter place to be in than any icy pass
among the Mexican sierras, and his thoughts were at liberty to come back
to his present situation. He was not now upon the Cordoba road, by which
he had left the gulf coast ever so long ago. This was the highway from
the city of Jalapa. He was cantering along only a short distance from
the seashore, and he was within a few miles of the gates of Vera Cruz.

"I remember them," he was thinking. "I never had a good chance for a
look at the walls, but I suppose I shall have one pretty soon. I wonder
if they are thick enough to stop a cannon-ball. Captain Kemp told me
they were built all around the city, but he didn't say how high they
are."

Walls there were, indeed, but their masonry was not the next thing that
was to be of especial interest to Ned. There is no kind of stonework
which can compare, under certain circumstances, with the point of a
lance or the edge of a machete, and the bearers of a number of such
weapons were to be seen coming toward him at a gallop.

"It looks like a whole company of lancers!" exclaimed the anxious
despatch-carrier. "Now I'm in for it! Everybody I met on the way was
civil enough, but these may be a different kind of fellows."

Whether they were or not, the whole force under General Morales was in a
state of unusual excitement that day, for the report was going around
that the American army brought by Commodore Connor's fleet was rapidly
coming ashore near Sacrificios Island, only three miles south of Vera
Cruz. If Ned himself had been aware of it, he might have changed his
plans and ridden right in among his own friends. As it was, howeve