Upon reaching the reverse point, the Conde and I were assigned the most likely posts; and these being also the highest, a final heart-breaking climb up a thousand feet of loose rocks succeeded. Chamois, like ibex, when disturbed instinctively make for the highest ground, hence our occupation of the topmost passes. Cheered on by the Conde, himself as hard as steel, the effort was accomplished, and I sank down, breathless, parched, and exhausted, behind a big rock that was indicated as my position. The lower passes had meanwhile been occupied by the Padre and by sundry shepherds armed with primitive-looking guns.
On recovering some degree of breath and strength, I surveyed my surroundings. We were both stationed on the topmost arête, in a nick that broke for 80 or 100 yards the rim of a knife-edged ridge that separated two stupendous gorges. On my right, while facing the beat, and not 30 yards away, the nick was terminated by a rock-mass perpendicular and four-square as a cathedral tower, that uprose some 100 feet sheer. On the left also rose cliffs though not quite so abrupt. The position was such that any game attempting to pass the nick must appear within 50 or 60 yards—so, in our simplicity, we thought.
Behind us dipped away the long moraine of loose rocks by which we had ascended; while in front, by stepping but a few paces across the narrow neck, we could look down into the depths of the gorge whence the quarry was to approach, as we feebly attempt to show in diagram annexed.
The panorama from these altitudes was superb beyond words. We were here far above the stratum of mist which enshrouded our camp and the sierra for some distance above it. We looked down upon a billowy sea of white clouds pierced here and there by the summits and ridges of outstanding crags like islands on a surf-swept coast.
Of bird-life there was no sign beyond choughs and a soaring eagle that our guides called aguila pintada (Aquila bonellii, immature). There are wild-boar in the forests far below, with occasional wolves and yet more occasional bear.
Hark! the distant cries of beaters break the solemn silence and announce that operations have begun. Almost instantly thereafter the rattle of loose stones dislodged by the feet of moving chamois came up from beneath our eyrie. So near was the sound that expectation waxed tense and eyes scanned each possible exit.
Then from the heights on the left, and already above us, sprang into view a band of five chamois lightly skipping from ledge to ledge with an agility that cannot be conveyed in words. The Conde and I fired simultaneously. The beast I had selected pulled himself convulsively together, sprang in air, and then fell backwards down the abyss whence he had just emerged. So abrupt was the skyline that no second barrel was possible; but while we yet gazed into space the rattle of falling stones right behind attracted attention in that direction, and a chamois was bounding across that loose moraine (or “canal” as it is here called) by which we had ascended. He flew those jumbled rocks as though they were a ballroom floor, offering at best but a snapshot, and the bullet found the beast already protected by a rock. Hardly, however, had cartridges been replaced than three more Rebecos followed along precisely the same track, and this time each gun secured one buck.
Note that all these last four animals had come in from our right, that is, they had escaladed the “cathedral”; though by what earthly means they could surmount sheer rock-walls devoid of visible crack or crevice passes human comprehension. For myself, having regarded the cathedral as impassable, I had kept no watch on that side.
For the next half-hour all was quiet. Then we heard again the rattle of hoofs somewhere down under, and on the sound ceasing, had gently raised ourselves to peer over into the eerie abyss in front, when a chamois suddenly poked his head over the rocks within fifteen yards, only to vanish like a flash.