My spirits rose to such a height that as we passed under the Lovers' Rock, still haunted by the Moorish maiden and her Christian lover, I quoted Southey, verse after verse of the old-fashioned poetry coming back to my mind. The Peña de los Enamorados stood up like a small model of Gibraltar, rising out of the plain; and as we wound on among other pinnacles almost as majestic, we could see the bleached skeleton of Archidona hanging on its mountain. Once the place had been a famous nest of brigands; and when after climbing a tremendous hill, we had come into its long white street, Dick was of opinion that Archidona of to-day was still an ideal summer resort for the fraternity in case they should crave a town life. Each low-browed house in the interminable avenue looked a fit nursery for mysteries and secrets. Here and there a dark face framed in a knotted red handkerchief peered from a lighted doorway, staring after the Gloria until she had slipped over the brow of the hill to coast smoothly down another as steep.
There, had we but known, the peaceful olive grove through which we passed and hushed the song of nightingales was to be our last glimpse of peace. Beyond that silver barrier lay chaos, [pg 297]a chaos of wild mountains, deep chasms, and grim steppes, solitary, unpeopled, forbidding under the moon!
If we broke an axle here, with leagues to walk to the nearest farm, there was no hope of Granada to-morrow. And now the road was equally well fitted for breaking axles, necks, and hearts.
It was made of rock in petrified waves, among which the Gloria floundered and buck-jumped as long ago Dick had expected her to do when she crossed the Spanish border. Every part of her shivered as though she were a horse in the bull-ring, and I pitied her as if she had a nerve in every spring and chain.
“This is no road; it's a nightmare,” groaned Dick. But if it were, it was a nightmare which ran with us glaring, showing frightful fangs, for mile after mile of horror. Just as the steep slope of a descent offered a softer cushion for the suffering tyres, and hope stirred within us, we broke into such a region as imagination pictures in the streets of Lisbon after the great earthquake. Gullies and vertical rifts scored the highway serpentining hither and thither, the chasms gaping to swallow the Gloria or at least bite off a wheel.
Now the earthy lip of a cleft would crumble and fall in as our driving-wheels skimmed along the edge; now, steer with all the nerve and nicety I might, the Gloria would rock as she hung half over a gully. Somehow I coaxed her down the hill, and driving out from the labyrinth of crevasses, I breathed a sigh of relief. But the next instant, I had only time to jam on the brakes to save the car from vaulting into a small river which ran across the road. Carefully embanked on either side, the stream flowed swiftly, cutting the descent at right angles.
Whatever the depth might prove, I had to risk it. Mounting the nearer embankment, I drove down into the running water, where the moon laughed up at me as I broke her glittering reflection.
“Good old San Cristóbal!” cried Dick as we came through without damage and climbed the opposite bank, to plump down a breakneck descent on the other side.
[pg 298] But it was early still to praise the saint. We had only to look ahead to see how much more he had to do for us, if we were to win through to Granada at all. Where a little clump of houses had assembled at the bottom of the hill, as if to watch our struggle, another and far broader river flowed.
It also raced across the highway, as if roads were made for river-beds; and this time the situation was so serious that I stopped the Gloria to reflect.