The only thing which presented any real difficulty to the boy's sanguine mind, was the bondage of his fetters; they not only cruelly impeded his movements, but made such a clanking as he walked, that it was certain to rouse the robbers. If Horace were once beyond the cave, the noise would signify less, but in that vaulted, echoing chamber, every sound was trebled. As his only resource, the youth half reclined on the rock and holding up the chain with one hand, so that the iron should not touch the stone, with the other, he helped to propel himself along in a slow and most uncomfortable manner.
Tedious and awkward as was this method of progression, it had at least the merit of being noiseless, and every yard crept over seemed to Horace to be a gigantic stride towards freedom. But oh, how distant seemed that yawning chasm through which the fugitive must make his way! How often he stopped in breathless anxiety to listen for sounds of pursuit!
At length the nearer end of the rocky passage was gained, and still perfect quiet reigned around; after their midnight revel, the bandits' slumbers were heavy and long. Horace had not crept far through the passage when the increasing light and the freshening air told of his approach to the outer world. He was so eager and impatient to reach it that the crouching position and slow progress to which he was confined became almost intolerably irksome. Horace had a vivid recollection of Enrico's threat; and the idea of being struck down like a rat in its hole, or shot in the back without the possibility of flight or resistance, increased the intensity of his desire to get beyond the perilous passage.
Horace reached the outer cave, which was light in comparison to that which he had quitted, though the entrance was much overgrown with plants. It opened upon the radiant east, and vivid though broken rays of sunshine were streaking with bright lines the rugged pavement and walls. "O blessed sunlight!" exclaimed the prisoner with transport, as, pushing the mantling foliage aside, he made his way into the open air, and sprang to his feet, feeling in the action as though he already were almost free!
Bright was the morning, splendid the view which the rocky platform without the cave commanded! An ocean of waving forest spread downwards—almond, olive, and palm, with a thick growth of underwood between, a wilderness of foliage, a labyrinth of wood, clothing the mountain-side, more than half-way up which the robber's den was situated. Horace had, however, no time now to indulge in admiration, or even to enjoy the sensation caused by the delicious air, and the knowledge that one great difficulty had been surmounted; he began at once to search anxiously for a downward path. The platform in front of the cave could only be quitted by descending such a rough, precipitous wall of rock, that a false step must have been fraught danger. Horace, twelve hours before, might with have gone down rapidly enough, but what was practicable to unfettered limbs was utterly impracticable to him now.
"I should but break a limb by attempting to get down!" exclaimed the almost despairing youth, after surveying again and again the rugged steep. "I cannot conceive how I ever mounted these rocks. Enrico dragged me up by sheer strength, or even his benevolent hint as to the quickening power of Matteo's stiletto would never have enabled me to climb. And even were I unshackled, and able to spring from rock to rock, by what clue could I find my way through that dense woodland before me? It shuts me in as effectually as bars and bolts could do. Oh, misery, to be thus mocked with the hope of freedom, only to find that, after all my exertions, it is impossible to escape!"
Horace was startled by a rough grasp on his shoulder. Turning sharply round, he beheld Enrico.
"So you thought to give us the slip!" exclaimed the bandit, significantly pointing to a pistol he carried in his belt. "Think you that if there had been a chance of our bird's escaping, we should not have clipped his wings more closely?"
"O Enrico!" exclaimed Horace with passionate earnestness, "you can help me—you can set me free. A file would be worth its weight in gold! Strike off my fetters—guide me through the wood, and the richest reward—"
"Name it again and I'll strike you dead!" cried Enrico, his sallow countenance assuming almost a livid hue.