Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/288

280 as an example. The tide of enthusiasm over the revolution ran high, with Iturbide on its topmost wave.

The scattered patriots who fought under Hidalgo and Morelos now came out of their hiding-places to join in the shout of "Independence for Mexico!" Among these was Guadalupe Victoria. After the death of his friend Morelos every, effort had been made by the government to seduce this brave patriot. He was offered high rank in the army and a rich reward if he would swear allegiance to viceregal authority. But he could not be bought. A price was set on his head, and he was hunted like a wild beast. Deserted at last by every follower, Victoria fled to the most inaccessible mountains, to retreats where his Indian friends did not follow him. Here, in utter loneliness, he lived for two years a hermit's life, subsisting only on nuts, berries, roots and such birds and animals as he could entrap. He was one of that great army of martyrs for truth who in all ages and lands have been "destitute, afflicted, tormented (of whom the world was not worthy); who wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth."

When the news of Iturbide's proclamation rang through Mexico, two faithful Indian followers went in search of Victoria to tell him of the new day which had dawned for their country. It was just three hundred years since the heel of the oppressor had been set on the neck of their race. Hope of freedom from their foreign masters had long since died out, but hope of freedom with them was now bringing Creole and Indian into new fellowship, and for the first time in the history of Mexico the two races rejoiced together.

Victoria's retreat was at last discovered in a cave in one of the wild gorges spanned now by the national