I also dismounted, and found near the pathway a stone which had evidently once stood upright, but now it lay flat among the long grass and wild flowers that grew there.
Notwithstanding the gloom which yet enveloped us I could make out an inscription, partly by feeling with my fingers. It was deeply cut, and ran thus:
"Aqvi mataron a Juan Hererro. 1850."
"Here they slew John Smith," said Hislop, echoing, or rather, freely translating the legend.
"They,—who were they?"
"Some robbers, no doubt; perhaps, like us, he came in search of the great diamond."
"Then is he buried here, think you?" asked I, instinctively stepping back from the stone.
"I cannot say. It is lively this, and not a bit of moonshine here yet!"
Eagerly and anxiously we gazed about us, but saw not a ray of light in the dark valley or ravine; and though neither of us said so at the time, we were not without vague suspicions of having been fooled, or, it might be, lured into some awkward trap; for our ideas of the Spanish character had by no means improved upon acquaintance.
"Do you see the diamond yet, Dick?" asked my friend for the third time.