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While the whole party, with their cavalcade of mules and baggage were gazing upon the scene, two horsemen, in bright blue and yellow tunics, and wearing turbans decorated with three large plumes of the quezal, dashed by them from the forest, at the distance of about two hundred yards, on steeds of the highest Spanish mould, followed by a long retinue of athletic Indians, equally well mounted, clothed in brilliant red tunics, with coronals of gay feathers, closely arranged within a band of blue cloth. Each horseman carried a long spear, pointed with a polished metal; and each held, in a leash, a brace of powerful blood-hounds, which were also of the purest Spanish breed. The two leaders of this troop, who were Indians of commanding air and stature, suddenly wheeled their horses and glared upon the large party of intruders with fixed amazement. Their followers evinced equal surprise, but forgot not to draw up in good military array, while the blood-hounds leapt and raged in their thongs.

"While the leaders," says Senor Velasquez, "seemed to be intently scrutinizing every individual of our company, as if silently debating their policy of an immediate attack, one of the Maya Indians, of whom I had been learning the dialect, stepped forward and informed us that they were a detachment of rural guards, a very numerous military force, which had been appointed from time immemorial, or, at least from the time of the Spanish invasion, to hunt down and capture all strangers of a foreign race that should be found within a circle of twelve leagues of the city; and he repeated the statement made to us from the beginning, that no white man had hitherto eluded their vigilance or left their city alive. He said there was a tradition that many of the pioneers of Alvarado's army had been cut off in this manner, and never heard of more, while their skulls and weapons are to this day suspended around the altars of the pagan gods. He added, finally, that if we wished to escape the same fate, now was our only chance; that as we numbered thirty-five, all armed with repeating rifles, we could easily destroy the present detachment, which amounted to but fifty, and secure our retreat before another could come up, but that, in order to do this, it was necessary first to shoot the dogs, which all our Indians regarded with the utmost dread and horror.

I instantly felt the force of this advice, in which also, I was sustained by Senor Hammond, but Senor Huertis whom, as the leader of the expedition, we were all bound and solemnly pledged to obey; utterly rejected the proposition. He had come so far to see the city and see it he would, whether taken there as a captive or not, and whether he ever returned from it or not, that this was the contract originally proposed, and to which I had assented; that the fine troop before us was evidently not a gang of savages, but a body of civilized men and good soldiers and as to the dogs, they were noble animals of the highest blood he ever saw. If, however, I and his friend Hammond, who seemed afraid of being eaten, in preference to the fine beef and venison which we had seen in such profusion on the plain, really felt alarmed at the bugbear legends of our vagabond Indians, before any demonstration of hostility had been made, we were welcome to take two-thirds of the men and mules and make our retreat as best we could, while he would advance with Antonio and the remainder of the party, to the gates of the city, and demand a peaceable admission. I could not but admire the romantic intrepidity of this resolve, though I doubted its discretion; and assured him I was ready to follow his example and share his fate.

"While this conversation was passing among us, the Indian commanders held a conference apparently as grave and important. But just as Senor Huertis and myself had agreed to advance towards them for a parley, they separated without deigning a reply to our salutation -- the elder and more highly decorated, galloped off towards the city with a small escort, while the other briskly crossed our front at the head of his squadron and entered the forest nearer the entrance of the valley. This opening in the hills, was scarcely a quarter of a mile wide, and but a few minutes elapsed before we saw a single horseman cross it toward the wood on the opposite side. Presently, another troop of horse of the same uniform appearance as the first, were seen passing a glade of the wood which the single horseman had penetrated, and it thus became evident that a manuouvre had already been effected to cut off our retreat. The mountains surrounding the whole area of the plain, were absolutely perpendicular for three-fourths of their altitude, which was no where less than a thousand feet; and from many parts of their wildly piled outline, huge crags projected in monstrous mammoth forms, as if to plunge to the billows of forest beneath. At no point of this vast impassible boundary was there a chasm or declivity discernable by which we could make our exit, except the one thus formidably intercepted.