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My anxiety was extreme, and though I knew our friends would range every way in quest of us, we might so readily wander in opposite directions, as we had no ammunition to signal with should they come near. Towards morning, exhausted with fatigue, I fell asleep, and dreamt, in my feverishness, that we were nearly at the end of our journey, and close to Orizava, in sight of home.
"Carrajo!" cried another; "take care what you're about! I haven't escaped the Yankee bullets to-day to have my skull cloven in that fashion. Arriba! arriba!" "I say, Antonio you're sure this road leads out above?" "Quite sure, camarado." "And then on to Orizava?" "But how far hombre?" "Oh! there are halting-places pueblitos." "Vaya! I don't care how soon we reach them.
Our intention was to make our way into the Cordillera, and, passing round the volcano of Orizava, to descend into the savannahs beyond, slanting off to the left so as ultimately to reach the sea. Then we thought of traversing the prairies and forests of the Terre-Chaude, so as again to come to our starting-point through the mountains of Songolica.
Through drifts of snow and over fields of ice, up steep ledges, along the slippery escarpment that overhangs the giddy abysm, with wearied knees, and panting breath, and frozen fingers, onward and upward I go. Ha! I have won the goal. I am on the summit! I stand on the "cumbre" of Orizava the mountain of the "burning star" more than three miles above the ocean level.
On our left rose the gigantic and majestic peak of Orizava or Citlatepetl that is, the "mountain of the star" which rises to 17,372 feet above the sea-level. Lucien thought that this could not really be the same mountain the summit of which he was in the habit of seeing every morning. "It is quite a different shape," he said.
To the first class belong Cotopaxi, the peak of Teneriffe, and the peak of Orizava in Mexico. In the second may be placed Cargueirazo and Pichincha, in the province of Quito; the volcano of Puracey, near Popayan; and perhaps also Hecla, in Iceland.
"Do your legs feel like mine?" he asked of l'Encuerado. "No, Chanito; we did not walk far enough yesterday for that." "You can't mean that we haven't walked far? Papa says that we are now seven leagues from Orizava." "Yes; that may seem a great deal to you, and perhaps too much; that is why I wanted to put you up on the top of my pack. Now, come, let me see where you suffer."
After tattoo-beat on the night of the 12th, with a party of my brother officers, I ascended the high hill around which winds the road leading to Orizava. This hill overlooks the city of Vera Cruz. After dragging ourselves wearily through the soft, yielding sand, we reached the summit, and halted on a projecting ridge.
This undue familiarity drew upon him a lecture on politeness, the end of which I was too sleepy to hear. The next day, which was the nineteenth since our departure from Orizava, we examined and compared our compasses, and the course of our journey was changed.
The brave animals at first appeared undecided which way to go, and remained without moving, keeping their noses to the wind. At last one of them neighed and darted off, when the rest followed at the top of their speed. We were now scarcely twelve leagues from Orizava, and almost painfully impatient to reach it.
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