On the fourth day we started by night, and I was carried on men's shoulders till at length we passed up the gorge that leads to the City of Pines.

Here we were stopped by sentries to whom Otomie told our tale, bidding some of them go forward and repeat it to the captains of the city.

We followed the messengers slowly, for my bearers were weary, and came to the gates of the beautiful town just as the red rays of sunset struck upon the snowy pinnacle of Xaca that towers behind it, turning her cap of smoke to a sullen red, like that of molten iron.
The news of our coming had spread about, and here and there knots of people were gathered to watch us pass.

For the most part they stood silent, but now and again some woman whose husband or son had perished in the siege, would hiss a curse at us.
Alas! how different was our state this day to what it had been when not a year before we entered the City of Pines for the first time.

Then we were escorted by an army ten thousand strong, then musicians had sung before us and our path was strewn with flowers.