CHAPTER XXVII
EL CAPITAN
The mutterings above the mountains now grew rapidly louder and while the two hovered over the fire, a thunder-squall, rolling wildly down the eastern slope, burst over the Gap. Its sudden fury put aside for a time all question of moving, and Nan’s face took on a grave expression as she looked in the firelight at her companion, thinking of how far such a storm might imperil their situation, how far cut off their already narrow chance of escape.
De Spain––reclining close beside her, looking into the depths of her eyes as the flickering blaze revealed them, drying himself in their warmth and light, eating and drinking of their presence on the mountainside alone with him, and pledged to him, his protection, and his fortunes against the world––apparently thought of nothing beyond the satisfaction of the moment. The wind drove the storm against the west side of the huge granite peak under which they were sheltered and gave them no present trouble in their slender recess. But Nan knew even better than her companion 349 the fickle fury of a range storm, and understood uncomfortably well how a sudden shift might, at any moment, lay their entire path open to its fierceness. She warned de Spain they must be moving, and, freshened by the brief rest, they set out toward El Capitan.
Their trail lay along granite levels of comparatively good going and, fleeing from the squall, they had covered more than half the distance that separated them from the cliff, when a second thunder-storm, seeming to rush in from the desert, burst above their heads. Drenched with rain, they were forced to draw back under a projecting rock. In another moment the two storms, meeting in the Gap, crashed together. Bolt upon bolt of lightning split the falling sheets of water, and thunder, exploding in their faces, stunned and deafened them.
Mountain peaks, played on by the wild light, leaped like spectres out of the black, and granite crags, searched by blazing shafts, printed themselves in ghostly flames on the retina; thunder, searching unnumbered gorges, echoed beneath the sharper crashes in one long, unending roll, and far out beyond the mountains the flooded desert tossed on a dancing screen into the glare, rippled like a madcap sea, and flashed in countless sheets of blinding facets. As if an unseen hand had 350 touched a thousand granite springs above the Gap, every slender crevice spouted a stream that shot foaming out from the mountainsides. The sound of moving waters rose in a dull, vast roar, broken by the unseen boom of distant falls, launching huge masses of water into caverns far below. The storm-laden wind tore and swirled among the crowded peaks, and above all the angry sky moaned and quivered in the rage of the elements.
Nan leaned within de Spain’s arm. “If this keeps up,” he said after some time, “our best play is to give up crossing to-night. We might hide somewhere on the mountain to-morrow, and try it toward evening.”
“Yes, if we have to,” she answered. But he perceived her reluctant assent. “What I am afraid of, Henry, is, if they were to find us. You know what I mean.”
“Then we won’t hide,” he replied. “The minute we get the chance we will run for it. This is too fierce to last long.”