“... running a nightmare race with each foot rooted to the ground.”
(page [35])
So perished the heroes Cabrit and Bassa, leaving their names to be handed down through the centuries as the names of men who died loyal to their king at a time when the greater part of the island had gone over to the usurper.
When Majorca again came into the hands of the legitimate line the ashes of the canonised heroes were placed in an urn and deposited beneath an altar in Palma Cathedral, where they remain to this day; and every succeeding generation hears from childhood up the stirring tale of how the two patriots fought and how they died.
The little oratory of Our Lady of Refuge stands upon the summit of the cliff, and no doubt originated as the chapel of the fortress. Subsequently it became a renowned sanctuary, and attached to it, as is usual in Majorca, is a small hospéderia, or hostelry, where pilgrims and visitors can obtain a night’s shelter. The view from this point is worth coming far to see; unrolled like a map at one’s feet, far, far below, is the great southern plain, from the Bay of Palma on the west, where the dark mass of the cathedral still shows just visible above the faint haze enveloping the city, to the glittering Bay of Alcúdia upon the far east coast. All the cities of the plain—Inca, Benisalém, La Puebla, Múro, and Lluchmayór, lie outspread before us. Behind us, range upon range, are the wooded slopes of the Sierra, the topmost peaks still crowned with snow; threads of quicksilver flash down the mountainsides, and valley, plain, and hill alike are enveloped in a grey sea of olive-trees, dwarfed by distance to the semblance of lavender bushes.
Some idea of the height of the rock on which we stand is obtained by dropping a stone over the edge; peering over the abyss as we lay full length on the ground we launched a small boulder into space, and, watch in hand, timed its descent.
“One, two, three,” the seconds ticked away, and still the stone fell, though to our eyes it appeared already to have reached the olive groves; “four, five, six,” and not till now did a dull crash come up from below to tell us that the stone was at its journey’s end. We arose cautiously and walked back along the very centre of the cliff, feeling in every nerve that were we to stumble nothing could save us from covering fully thirty feet in our fall and disappearing over the edge of the precipice.