For a few minutes, these men accomplished prodigies; but at length numbers gained the mastery: they all fell!
The Captain alone was still alive.
He had taken advantage of the devotion of his soldiers to seize a crowbar, and hurl one chest over the precipice; the second, raised with great difficulty, only required a final effort to disappear in its turn, when suddenly a terrible hurrah caused the officer to raise his head.
The border rifles were rushing up, terrible, and panting like tigers thirsting for carnage.
"Ah!" Gregorio Felpa, the traitor-guide, shouted gladly, as he rushed forward; "at any rate we shall have this one."
"You lie, villain!" the Captain answered.
And raising with both hands the terrible bar of iron, he cleft the skull of the soldier, who fell like a stunned ox, not uttering a cry, or giving vent to a sigh.
"Whose turn is it next?" the Captain said as he raised the crowbar.
A yell of horror burst from the crowd, which hesitated for a moment.
The Captain quickly lowered his crowbar, and the chest hung over the brink of the abyss.