Ned waited a long time.  Drops of rain began to fall, and the wind moaned with an almost human note around the pyramids and old walls.  The rain increased a little, but it never fell in abundance.  It and the wind were very cold, and Ned drew the serape very closely about his body.  He was anxious now for time to pass fast, because he was beginning to feel afraid, not of the Mexicans, but of the dead city, and the ghosts of those vanished long ago, although he knew there were no such things.  But the human note in the wind grew until it was like a shriek, and this shriek was to him a warning that he must go.  The pyramid had been his salvation, but his time there was at an end.

He drew the sombrero far down over his eyes, and once more calculated the chances.  He spoke Spanish well, and he spoke its Mexican variations equally well.  If they saw him he might be able to pass for a Mexican.  He must succeed.

He lowered himself from the crowning platform of the pyramid and began the descent.  The cold rain pattered upon him and his body was weak from privation, but his spirit was strong, and with steady hand and foot he went down.  He paused several times to look at the camp.  Five or six fires still burned there, but they flickered wildly in the wind and rain.  He judged that the sentinels would not watch well.  For what must they watch, there in the heart of their own country?

But as he approached the bottom he saw two of these sentinels walking back and forth, their bayonets reflecting a flicker now and then from the flames.  He saw also five or six large white tents, and he was quite sure that the largest sheltered at that instant Martin Perfecto de Cos, whom he wished very much to avoid.  He intended, when he reached the bottom, to keep as close as he could in the shadow of the pyramid, and then seek the other side of the Teotihuacan.

The rain was still blown about by the wind, and it was very cold.  But the influence of both wind and rain were inspiring to the boy.  They were a tonic to body and mind, and he grew bolder as he came nearer to the ground.  At last he stepped upon the level earth, and stood for a little while black and motionless against the pyramid.

He was aware that the cordon of Cos’ army completely enclosed the Pyramid of the Moon, the Pyramid of the Sun, the Calle de los Muertos and the other principal ruins, and he now heard the sentinels much more distinctly as they walked back and forth.  Straining his eyes he could see two of them, short, sallow men, musket on shoulder.  The beat of one lay directly across the path that he had chosen, reaching from the far edge of the Pyramid of the Moon to a point about twenty yards away.  He believed that when this sentinel marched to the other end of his beat he could slip by.  At any rate, if he were seen he might make a successful flight, and he slipped his hand to the handle of the machete in his belt in order that he might be ready for resistance.