But anything might happen in that time, and his courage suffered no decrease.
He retreated toward the center of the platform as the day was now coming fast after the southern fashion.

The whole circle of the heavens seemed to burst into a blaze of light, and, in a few hours, the sun was hotter than it had been before.

Many sounds now came from the camp below, but Ned, although he often looked eagerly, saw no signs of coming departure.
Shortly after noon there was a great blare of trumpets, and a detachment of lancers rode up.

They were large men, mounted finely, and the heads of their long lances glittered as they brandished them in the sun.
Ned's attention was drawn to the leader of this new detachment, an officer in most brilliant uniform, and he started.

He knew him at once.
It was the brother-in-law of Santa Anna, General Martin Perfecto de Cos, a man in whom that old, cruel strain was very strong, and whom Ned believed to be charged with the crushing of the Texans.