"Shall we start?"
"Yes, but slowly. The poor mustangs! But it will not be long now. We cannot be more than two leagues from there. See, it grows plainer every moment; the fog must have been very heavy."
They cantered on slowly, the mustangs responding automatically to the light prick of the spur. The beautiful alluring city looked to be floating in cloud; it smiled and beckoned, inciting even the weary famished brutes to effort. But at the end of an hour Roldan reined in with a puzzled expression. "I do not understand," he said. "It seemed not two leagues away when we started, and we have come that far and more, and still it seems exactly the same distance beyond."
"The atmosphere is so clear," suggested Adan. "But I wish we were there. My mouth is parched, my tongue is dry—and the horses, Roldan. Soon they will be as limp as sails in a calm."
"True, but we could easily walk the distance now. We could return for them at once with water and food." But he was beginning to feel vaguely uneasy once more. The odd sensation of death, of a buried world, had returned. Could it be that that fair city beyond was heaven? Surely, he thought with unconscious humour, it was very un-Californian.
They passed the lonely buttes, the parched beds of lakes, salt-coated. Still they saw not a living thing; still the city seemed to recede with the horizon, its sharp beautiful outlines unchanged. For some time the horses had been trotting unevenly. Gradually they relaxed into a dogged amble, their heads down, their tongues out. Every now and again they half paused, with quivering knees.
Adan's was the first to collapse; it fell to its knees, then rolled over, Adan scrambling from under, unhurt.
Roldan also dismounted, and both boys, without a word, unsaddled the poor brutes, thrust the pistols into their belts and what was left of the provisions into their pockets. They cast off their ponchos, then once more turned their faces to the south. But they did not advance. They stood with distended eyes and suspended breath. The city had disappeared.
Adan was the first to find speech. "A fog?" he asked. "A rain storm?"
"There is neither. The horizon is as blue and clear as it is on the north and east and west. It is a miracle. Let me think a moment."