"Caramba, this is like practicing gymnastics! Whoever escapes being killed when we are going back will be very lucky."
"Lean well on me, lean well on me," said the sturdy country girl. "Many a limb has been broken here already, no doubt. This ascent is terrible!"
They reached the summit at last. The prospect was beautiful, with that species of beauty that borders on sublimity. The pine wood seemed to hang over an abyss. Between the trunks of the trees could be caught glimpses of the mountains, of an ashen blue blending into violet in the distance; on the other side of the pine wood, that which overlooked the river, the ground fell abruptly in a steep, almost perpendicular descent, while far below flowed the Avieiro, not winding peacefully along, but noisy and foaming, roused into rage by the barrier opposed to its progress by some sharp black rocks and separating into numerous currents that curled around the bowlders like angry green snakes covered with silver scales. To the roaring and sobbing of the river the pine wood kept accompaniment with its perpetual plaint intoned by the summits of the trees, which swayed and vibrated to the kisses of the breeze, dolorous kisses that drew from them an incessant moan.
The excursionists, impressed by the tragic aspect of the scene, remained mute. Only the child broke the silence, speaking in tones as hushed as if she were in a church.
"Well, it is true, mamma! The pines sing. Do you hear them? It sounds like the chorus of bishops in 'L'Africaine.' They even seem to speak—listen—in bass voices—like that passage in the 'Huguenots——'"
Nieves agreed that the murmur of the pines was in truth musical and solemn. Segundo, leaning against a tree, looked down at the river foaming below; Victorina approached him, but he stopped her and made her go back.
"No, my child," he said; "don't come near; it is a little dangerous; if you should lose your footing and roll down that declivity——Go back, go back."
As nothing further occurred to them to say about the pines, the excursionists began to think of returning home; Nieves was a little uneasy about the descent, and she wished to undertake it before the sun should set.
"Now, indeed, we shall break some of our bones, Don Fermin," she said to the doctor. "Now, indeed, you may begin to get your bandages and splints ready."
"There is another road," said Segundo, emerging from his abstraction. "And one which is much less toilsome and much more level than this."