He moved over toward the northern edge of the pyramid, and stood under the palm which he had noticed in the day.  One of its broad green leaves, swayed by the wind, touched him softly on the face.  He looked up.  It was a friendly palm.  Its very touch was kindly.  He stroked the blades and then he examined the stem or body minutely.  He was a studious boy who had read much.  He had heard of the water palm of the Hawaiian and other South Sea Islands.  Might not the water palm be found in Mexico also?  In any event, he had never heard of a palm that was poisonous.  They were always givers of life.

He raised the machete and slashed the stem of the palm at a point about five feet from the ground.  The wound gaped open and a stream of water gushed forth.  Ned applied his mouth at once and drank long and deeply.  It was not poison, nor was it any bitter juice.  This was the genuine water palm, yielding up the living fluid of its arteries for him.  He drank as long as the gash gave forth water and then sat down under the blades of the palm, content and thankful, realizing that there was always hope in the very heart of despair.

Ned sat a long time, feeling the new life rushing into his veins.  He ate from the food of which he had a plentiful supply and once more gave thanks to Benito and Juana.  Then he stood up and the broad leaves of the palm waving gently in the wind touched his face again.  He reached up his hand and stroked them.  The palm was to him almost a thing of life.  He went to the edge of the pyramid and strove for a sight of the Teotihuacan.  He caught at last a flash of its waters in the moonlight and he shook his fist in defiance.  “I can do without you now,” was his thought.  “The sight of you does not torture me.”

He returned to his usual place of sleep.  As long as he had a water supply it was foolish of him to attempt an escape through the Mexican lines.  He was familiar now with every square inch of the twenty feet square of the crowning platform of the pyramid.  It seemed that he had been there for weeks and he began to have the feeling that it was home.  Once more, hunger and thirst satisfied, he sought sleep and slept with the deep peace of youth.

Ned awoke from his second night on the pyramid before dawn was complete.  There was silvery light in the east over the desolate ranges, but the west was yet a dark blur.  He looked down and saw that nearly all the soldiers were still asleep, while those who did not sleep were as motionless as if they were.  In the half light the lost city, the tumuli and the ruins of the old buildings took on strange and fantastic shapes.  The feeling that he was among the dead, the dead for many centuries, returned to Ned with overpowering effect.  He thought of Aztec and Toltec and people back of all these who had built this city.  The Mexicans below were intruders like himself.

He shook himself as if by physical effort he could get rid of the feeling and then went to the water palm in which he cut another gash.  Again the fountain gushed forth and he drank.  But the palm was a small one.  There was too little soil among the crevices of the ancient masonry to support a larger growth, and he saw that it could not satisfy his thirst more than a day or two.  But anything might happen in that time, and his courage suffered no decrease.