"Do you know what would follow your making any such attempt?"
"Perhaps—" began Horace.
"Most assuredly," interrupted Enrico, "I should send a bullet through your head."
"This gentleman, as he calls himself, is not much better than the rest," was the silent reflection of Horace.
A few more steps, and the two had reached the mouth of a cave which yawned in the mountain, its mouth half hidden by a thick growth of cactus, which abounded as a weed in this place. Horace was glad to have arrived at his destination, whatever it might be, for he felt that he could not for many minutes more have endured the exhausting effort of dragging his fettered feet over the rocks.
[CHAPTER VI.]
THE ROBBERS' CAVE.
Enrico, followed by his prisoner, groped his way through the cave, and then along a passage in the rock too low to admit of their standing upright. The dampness of the air, the darkness of the place, made the unhappy Horace feel as though he were entering a tomb. They soon, however, emerged into a very spacious cavern of irregular shape, at one side of which was some light. This light, as Horace soon perceived, came from two wax tapers, burning in front of an image of the Virgin. The feeble gleam served only to make "darkness visible," not reaching at all to the roof of the cave, and showing but little even of its brown rugged wall. The place was tenanted by bats, which wheeled around in circling flights, seeming to Horace's fevered imagination like spirits of evil haunting the robbers' cave. The youth watched with curiosity to see whether Enrico would cross himself or bow on passing the image, and as he did neither, the prisoner ventured upon a remark.
"I should hardly have expected to see that here," he said, pointing to the shrine.
"Why so?" asked his companion.