He saw a rude wharf along the canal and several boats, all with the sails furled, except two.  These two might be returning to the fresh water lakes, and it was possible that he could secure passage.  The people of the bergantins were always humble peons and they cared little for the intrigues of the capital.

It was now about eleven o’clock and the night had lightened somewhat, a fair moon showing.  Ned could see distinctly the boats or bergantins as the Mexicans called them.  They were large, flat of bottom, shallow of draft, and were propelled with both sail and oar.  He was repulsed at the first, where a surly Mexican of middle age told him with a curse that he wanted no help, but at the next which had as a crew a man, a woman, evidently his wife, and two half-grown boys, he was more fortunate.  Could he use an oar?  He could.  Then he might come, because there was little promise of wind, and the sails would be of no use.  A strong arm would help, as it was sixteen miles down La Viga to the Lake of Xochimilco, on the shores of which they lived.  The boys were tired and sleepy, and he would serve very well in their stead.

Ned took his place in the boat, truly thankful that in this crisis of his life he knew how to row.  He saw that his hosts, or rather those for whom he worked, were an ordinary peon family, at least half Indian, sluggish of mind and kind of heart.  They had brought vegetables and flowers to the city, and now they were thriftily returning in the night to their home on the lake that Benito Igarritos and his sons might not miss the next day from their work.

Igarritos and Ned took the oars.  The two boys stretched themselves on the bottom of the boat and were asleep in an instant.  Juana, the wife, spread a serape over them, and then sat down in Turkish fashion in the center of the bergantin, a great red and yellow reboso about her head and shoulders.  Sometimes she looked at her husband, and sometimes at the strange boy.  He had spoken to them in good Mexican, he dressed like a Mexican and he walked like a Mexican, but she had not been deceived.  She knew that the Mexican part of him ended with the serape and sombrero.  She wondered why he had come, and why he was anxious to go to the Lake of Xochimilco.  But she reflected with the patience and resignation of an oppressed race that it was no business of hers.  He was a good youth.  He had spoken to her with compliments as one speaks to a lady of high degree, and he bent manfully on the oar.  He was welcome.  But he must have a name and she would know it.

“What do you call yourself?” she asked.

“William,” he replied.  “I come from a far country, England, and it is my pleasure to travel in new lands and see new peoples.”

“Weel-le-am,” she said gravely, “you are far from your friends.”

Ned bent his head in assent.  Her simple words made him feel that he was indeed far from his own land and surrounded by a thousand perils.  The woman did not speak again and they moved on with an even stroke down the canal which had an uniform width of about thirty feet.  They were still passing houses of stone and others of adobe, but before they had gone a mile they were halted by a sharp command from the shore.  An officer and three soldiers, one of whom held a lantern, stood on the bank.