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As for the removal of valuable property, Ned had already learned that Vera Cruz was haunted not only by bad characters from the interior, but by desperadoes from up and down the coast and from the West India Islands. He was not near enough to hear, however, when Zuroaga remarked to his friend Tassara: "You are right, my dear colonel.
We must part here. You and your pony will go on with Colonel Tassara, and I will take my chances for reaching my place of refuge in Oaxaca. It is not a very good chance, but I must make the best of it that I can. Take good care of yourself. I have already said good-by to the señora and the señorita. I think they will soon be out of danger."
His change of utterance into an anxious exclamation was produced by a piercing scream from the carriage, and that was followed by the excited voice of Señora Tassara calling out: "Husband! The general is attacked! Look! Hear the firing!" "O father! Can we not help him?" gasped Señorita Felicia.
If any friend of his, a servant, for instance, of the Tassara family, had been listening, he would have had nothing to report which would have made any other man suppose that the rulers of Mexico had bitter, revengeful foes under that hospitable roof. The dinner ended, and Ned was once more in his room, glad enough to get into his hammock and go to sleep.
"Carfora," he exclaimed, "you are too young to have been sent on such an errand as this. General Bravo! Colonel Tassara! Señora Paez! General Zuroaga! Ah, Santa Maria! And our brave army was shattered at Angostura, after all. This is dreadful news! You shall die before I will allow you to spread it among my men!"
It was time to go down-stairs and report to his faithful friends, for he knew it would be very mean not to do so, and the first person he met was Señora Tassara herself. "I have letters from home!" he exclaimed, bluntly "newspapers, too!" and she held up both hands in astonishment, as she responded: "Letters from the United States?
It was the same, for they said so, emphatically, with the boatmen and Colonel Tassara. "One of the men will take your bag," said the colonel to Ned, as soon as they were out on shore. "We will go right along to my house, and we shall hardly meet anybody just now. I'm glad of that. Santa Maria, how dark it is getting! This will be the worst kind of norther."
The first doubt that came to Ned Crawford that morning, as his eyes opened and he began to get about half-awake, related to his hammock and to how on earth he happened to be in it. Swift memories followed then of the norther, the perilous pull ashore, the arrival at the Tassara place, and the people he had met there.
That Seville coffee-urn had ornamented the table in the house at Vera Cruz, his first refuge after he came ashore out of the destructive norther. It had winked at him from a similar post of honor in the country-house out in Puebla, and Señora Tassara had affectionately brought it with her to the residence of her city cousin.
Hardly was Ned three steps inside of the dwelling, when he was met by Señora Tassara, apparently in a state of much mental agitation. "My dear young friend!" she exclaimed, "I am so glad you have escaped from them! Come in. We shall have no regular dinner to-day. You will eat your luncheon now, however. We are all busy packing up. We must set out for the country as soon as it is dark.
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