HOW WE CAME TO THAT PLACE WHICH I CALL THE VALLEY OF DEATH.
As we followed this path, we discovered that, where opportunity offered, bridges of long trees had been thrown from one jutting rock to another, to save the labor of cutting a way in the side of the mountain. We had crossed two of these bridges when Matthew, being ahead of me, suddenly mended his pace, and then, coming to a stand, turns about and cries:
"Hang me if I wasn't right after all, master. They have come along this road, but have turned back."
"How can you answer for that, friend?" says I.
"Why, look you," says he, pointing to the road a dozen yards ahead of us. "Here is a bridge broke."
Stepping briskly forward, I found that it truly was as he said, for there yawned a great gap, which no man could jump; and that there had been a bridge here we could plainly see by the print of the tree-trunks in the rubble on the ledge cut for them in the rock. Moreover, looking over the edge, we spied one of these timbers lying athwart of a rock down below.
This discovery so comforted me (for I made sure I was now near my Lady Biddy, instead of being all at sea as to her whereabouts) that I set up a great shout of joy.
"For the love of Heaven, master, have a care!" cried Matthew in a whisper, after listening a moment in terror. "Did you not hear that answer to your shout?"
"Nay," says I; "what answer?"
"I know not," says he, looking around him in a scare; "pray Heaven it be not our enemies."
"Nonsense," says I, beside myself with this return of hope; "'twas but an echo from the rocks—hark!" And with that I hallooed again as loud as I could, which was the maddest thing to do, and not to be done save by a man reckless with despair or with joy.
On this Matthew claps his hand on his mouth in terror, as if it was he who had sung out, and then lifting his finger crouches down on his hams, overcome with fear and expecting nothing less, I believe, than to be riddled with musket-balls the next minute. But he had cause for alarm, and I only was the fool, for now I distinctly heard over and above the echoes of my voice a cry harsh and hoarse, but like nothing human, so that I was brought to my sober senses in a moment. So we stood silent and still for the space of a minute, wondering whence this sound came (and I not much braver than Matthew), and then I fell laughing like a fool.
"See," says I, pointing to a great buzzard which was sweeping in a circle over the trees below, "there is the only enemy I have roused, and one whose flight is more to be counted on than his attack."
But Matthew would not join in my mirth, and, albeit he got back his courage presently, he was not so light of heart as he had been before, for he took this bird to be a sign of ill-omen.
"Come, master," says he, "instead of playing the fool here, let us think how we are to get t'other side this chasm, unless you are minded to rest here content. For my own part, I see no way to get across."
"Have patience with me, Matthew," says I, seeing I had wounded his feelings by laughing at his terror. "I have been so unhappy that this change in our fortune has turned my head."
"Lord love you, master," says he kindly, "I like a jest as well as any man, but hang me if I see any joking matter here, or any change of fortune to be charmed with. For at the next station De Pino will get all the Portugals he can to return with his own fellows to restore this bridge, so we are like to have a score of arquebuses against us instead of ten or a dozen."
This brought our danger and our difficulties so clearly to my mind that I grew sober at once, and began to cast about with Matthew very earnestly how we might bridge the chasm. But there was nothing there for such a purpose, and there was no way but to climb up the rocks or down until we found some jutting points by which we could scramble along the face of the mountain. After calculating by which method we were least likely to break our necks, we resolved to go upwards, yet had we to go back some way to get at any part that could be scaled. But after climbing up some fifty feet we found ourselves (thanks be to God) on a ledge of smooth rock, which we had not seen from the road below for its height and the rock that overhung it. This ledge, as I judge, had been formed by a slip in the mountain, for there a seam of glittering rock ran all along beside it; but be that as it may, it formed a level path as good as that we had quitted, and better, though mighty narrow in parts, so that it was a ticklish business to go forward, and that sideways and clinging with every nail to the rock; and the narrowest part was (as luck would have it) just over that part where the bridge had been broken away, so that we felt exceeding grateful to Providence when we were safe on the other side.
We now considered whether we should get down again into the made road, but seeing the side was still vastly steep and difficult to descend, we were content to follow our ledge, in the hope we should presently come to a part where we might descend more easily. We had gone about a hundred yards when, looking over the side, I stopped, and called Matthew's attention to the road below.
"Lord love us, master," cried he, casting his eye down, "why, there's another bridge gone!"
There was, indeed, another great gap in the road, not less extensive than the first.
"Can you make out what this signifies?" says Matthew.
"No," says I. "'Tis no accident, that's pretty clear; and it looks as if it were done of a design to check pursuit."
"What pursuit had they for to fear?" says Matthew; "not ours, to be sure." Then scratching his head, after tilting his hat for'ard, as was his wont, he says, half aloud, as if trying to grasp the points of the problem: "They are going south; they cross the first bridge and come to the second. They destroy that so carefully that not a stick is left; go back, cross the first bridge again, and pull that down as carefully as they served the other." He could make nothing of it, which seemed to exasperate him; for he presently claps his hat back in its place, and dropping on his hands and knees, the better to survey the road, cranes over the edge of the rock, casting his eye to the right, and then to the left, and finally fixing it on the ground beneath.
"Master," says he, "do you tell me what marks you see in the road down there."
So down go I on my hands and knees, and looking intently for some time—
"I can see," says I, "the marks of the mules' feet in the dust, but whether they are turned north or south I can't make out."
"Nor I, neither," says he; "but do you see anything besides?"
"I see a trace where the hoof-marks seem to be smudged out; as if something had been dragged along the ground towards the edge of the abyss."
"That's what I mean. Now what does that argify?" he asks, getting off his hands, squatting on his heels, and once more scratching his head.
I could make no reply, but still leaned over, trying to make out these marks.
"Good God!" exclaimed Matthew, all of a sudden, "what's this?"
Turning about hastily, I found him regarding a patch on the rock just in front of where he was kneeling. Looking closer, I saw that it was almost black, yet with a purple tinge. Matthew scraped it with his nail, and as it showed deep red below the surface he looks up into my face and says, dropping his voice almost to a whisper:
"Blood!"
Glancing round he scanned the rocky ledge behind him; then suddenly he points his finger without a word to another stain not a foot off; but this told its tale more clearly, for it formed a print of an open hand; as if a wounded man, after trying to stanch the blood from a wound, had been forced to clap that hand on the rock to save him from falling into the road below.
That others had been on that ledge before us was clear enough, but it beat me to know how a wounded man could have crawled up there, or what his purpose had been.
"Come on, master," says Matthew, springing to his feet, "we must lose no time. This riddle concerns us, or I am wrong in my reckoning. God grant no mischief has come to the female; that's all I pray."
My heart was chilled to hear him speak thus, for I saw that he argued more from these signs than he chose to tell, and that he had grave fears to make him utter this prayer. I followed him close at his heels, quaking in every muscle for fear, until we came to a part where it looked possible to slide down into the road without very great danger; yet was it such a venture as we might not have made at another time, but Matthew was as desperate as I.
"Master," says he, as we lay down to slip over the edge; "we'll both let go at the same time, so that one may not have to bury the other if this hazard does our business."
So we hung over the side, and, recommending ourselves to Providence, nodded to each other, and let go. In about two minutes we slid down about fifty feet and more; but by a happy chance came upon our feet at the bottom in the middle of that narrow road, not much more bruised and torn than we had hoped for.
As soon as he had fetched breath, Matthew falls to examining the dust in the road foot by foot, going in the direction of the chasm where the bridge had been (the northernmost of the two), I following in silence, for I had not his intelligence, yet looking stupidly on the ground, as if I expected to see Lady Biddy's history writ there.
When he had come right to the edge of the gulf and could go no further, he turns to me and says very gravely:
"Master, have you got a stout heart?"
"Ay," says I; but my voice belied me, for it was feeble as a child's, knowing by this prelude that he had come to a conclusion which must be terrible to my ear.
Matthew unslung his wine-skin and bade me drink.
"For," says he, "I warn you there is a call for all your manhood."
When I had drank I bade him tell me the worst of his fears.
"Look you," says he, pointing to the dust of the road, "here are the marks of mules' hoofs, and here the prints of those great boots the Portugals wear."
"Yes," says I, waiting with a throbbing heart for what was to follow hence.
"The boot-prints go all in one direction—south; not one is turned north as I can find; but the mules' hoofs turn both south and north; and see, here is one turned north that is right in the midst of a footprint turned south."
"Go on, Matthew," says I faintly, yet with a show of courage, that he might finish.
"The Ingas have been at work. I see the hand of those murderous savages in this; yet we should not call 'em hard names neither, for they only do that for revenge which the Portugals do for gold. They dread and hate every white face, and from time to time they travel in a great band leagues and leagues to come to a place like this, where they may rid themselves of these Portugal tyrants. Here was a place after their very heart. They destroy the further bridge, and when De Pino has passed they came from their ambuscade, which, as we know, was in the rock above, and withdraw the timbers of the hither one, which they may have been loosing and preparing for weeks, and thus, when the whole train can neither go onward nor backward, they go up to the ledge again, and shoot down with their arrows from the rock above every one of their enemies. Then, when their deadly work is finished, they replace the timbers to fetch off the mules and their booty. To end all they cast down the timbers to delay discovery and give them time to escape. This is how it comes about that we see the hoofs turned north, but not a single footmark of those who went south with them."
"Out with it, Matthew!" I cries, in a passion of despair; "tell me that she is massacred with the rest—that not one has escaped!"
"Master," says he, with a great compassion in his voice, "the Ingas have no more pity for a white woman than a white man. All are gone!"
"No, no!" cries I imploringly; "'tis not so. They found the bridge broke and went back."
Without a word Matthew put his hand on my arm and pointed down to the valley where the great buzzard that I had laughed at but half an hour before was again sweeping round above the trees.
My heart stopped, and I felt it lie like a cold stone within me as I thought upon what dainty flesh this foul bird of carrion had been gorging.