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As the cavalcade advanced through this highway to the centre of the city, they found it crowded on each side with the masses of the population assembled to behold a spectacle so unprecedented and mysterious; but the utmost order prevailed and even the silence was profound. The news of the slaughter and disperson of their military guardians, by an army of strangers, wielding deadly weapons of fire and smoke, had already ran through every quarter of the city with increasing exaggeration and terror; but the people wisely left its investigation to their constituted authorities, and were rendered comparatively tranquil by their personal observation of its actual results. Arrived at the quadrated point, where the two great avenues we have described intersect, Mr. Huertis boldly demanded of his guide the further course and character of his destination. He was answered by his dignified companion, that he would be conducted to the building immediately before him, which is described as one of majestic dimensions and style, where the monarch of the nation daily assembled with his councillors, at the hour of noon, to administer justice and listen to complaints. In the meantime, his wounded friend could be placed in a state of greater ease and repose, in one of the apartments of the edifice, while the mules and baggage could be disposed of in its basement vaults. When this was accomplished the hours of audience had arrived.

The entire party of strangers, with the young chief and several of his subordinates, were then led into a large and lofty hall, surrounded by columns, and displaying three raised seats covered with canopies of rich drapery and design. On the one of these, which stood at the eastern end, sat the monarch himself, a personage of grave but benignant aspect, about sixty years of age, arrayed in scarlet and gold, and having a golden image of the rising sun, of extraordinary splendor, displayed on the back of his throne. On the seat on the southern side, sat a venerable man of advanced age, not less gorgeously attired; and the seat at the western end was occupied by a functionary of similar years and costume. Around the apartment, and especially around the steps of the throne, sat other grave looking men, in scarlet robes. Huertis, Velasquez, and their Indians, still carrying their loaded rifles, of which he had not suffered them to be deprived, stood to the left side of the monarch, and the young chief and his soldiers on the right. The latter gave his statement with truth and manly candour, although the facts which he averred seemed to fill the whole council with amazement, and left a settled gloom upon the imperial brow. The whole proceeding possesses great interest in Velasquez's narrative, but we can only briefly state that it resulted in the decision, which was concurred in by the associate councillors, that the strangers having magnanimously released and restored the company of guards, after they had surrendered themselves prisoners; and having voluntarily entered the city in a peaceable manner, when they might possibly have effected their escape, were entitled to their personal freedom, within the limits of the city, and might eventually, under voluntary but indispensable obligations, become eligible to all the privileges of citizenship, within the same limits. In the mean time, they were to be maintained as pensioners of state, on condition that they made no use of their dangerous weapons, nor exhibited them to terrify the people. With this decision, Huertis and his companions were perfectly satisfied, for the latter had undiminished confidence in his ability and determination to achieve their escape, as soon as he should have accomplished the scientific objects of his expedition. On leaving the hall of justice, they observed the elder military chief, of whom a slight mention has been made, brought in with two others of inferior rank and it was afterwards currently reported that they had been sentenced to close imprisonment. It was, also, ascertained by Velasquez, that the four companies of rangers, already noticed, composing a regiment of two hundred men, constituted the whole military force of this timid and peaceful people.

From this point, our abstract of the narrative must be chiefly a brief catalogue of the most important of the concluding events. The place of residence assigned to our travellers, was the vacant wing of a spacious and sumptuous structure, at the western extremity of the city, which had been appropriated, from time immemorial, to the surviving remnant of an ancient and singular order of priesthood called Kaanas, which, it was distinctly asserted in their annals and traditions, had accompanied the first migration of this people from the Assyrian plains. Their peculiar and strongly distinctive lineaments, it is now perfectly well ascertained are to be traced in many of the sculptured monuments of the central American ruins, and were found still more abundantly on those of Iximaya. Forbidden, by inviolably sacred laws, from intermarrying with any persons but those of their own caste, they had here dwindled down, in the course of many centuries, to a few insignificant individuals, diminutive in stature, and imbecile in intellect. They were, nevertheless, held in high veneration and affection by the whole Iximayan community, probably as living specimens of an antique race so nearly extinct. Their position, as an order of priesthood, it is now known, had not been higher, for many ages, if ever, than that of religious mimes and bacchanals, in a certain class of pagan ceremonies, highly popular with the multitude. This, indeed, is evident from their characteristics in the sculptures. Their ancient college, or hospital, otherwise vacant and forlorn, was now chiefly occupied by a much higher order of priests, called Mahaboons, who were their legal and sacerdotal guardians. With a Yachin, one of the junior brethren of this order, named Vaalpeor, a young man of superior intellect and attainments, Velasquez soon cultivated a friendly and confidential acquaintance, which proved reciprocal and faithful. And while Huertis was devoting all his time and energies to the antiquities, hieroglyphics, ethnology, science, pantheism, theogony, arts, manufactures, and social institutions of this unknown city and people, the ear of this young pagan priest was as eagerly imbibing, from the wiley lips of Velasquez, a similar knowledge of the world at large, to him equally new and enchanting. If Huertis had toiled so severely, and hazarded so much, both as to himself and companions, to acquire a knowledge of this one city and people, it soon became clear to the penetrating mind of Velasquez, that Vaalpeor possessed enough both of mental ambition and personal energy to incur equal toil and risk to learn the wonders of the cities and races of the greater nations of mankind. Indeed, this desire evidently glowed in his breast with a consuming fervor, and when Velasquez, after due observation proposed the liberation of the whole expedition, with Vaalpeor himself, as its protected companion, the now consciously imprisoned pagan, horror-stricken at first, regarded the proposition with complacency, and finally, with a degree of delight, regardless of consequences. It was, however, mutually agreed that the design should be kept secret from Huertis, until ripe for success. A serious obstacle existed in his plighted guardianship of the Kaana children, whom he could abandon only with his life; but even this was not deemed insurmountable.