Appadocca now waded along towards the shore, swimming now and then, when a larger chasm than usual intervened. As he approached the land, however, the rocks began to sink lower and lower, until at last he was left without a footing. There was yet a considerable distance between where he was, and the shore, and in his condition, the prospect of being saved, even after the succession of unexpected auxiliary accidents was but slight and precarious. Nevertheless, he was obliged to hazard all; so he began to swim again. His arms after the rest they had had, were more powerful. On—on, he went—closer, and closer—he drew to the land; still the distance was immense to a well-nigh exhausted man. His strength began again to fail; but a few strokes Appadocca, and you are on land. His strength diminished more and more, shadows again began to flit across his vision, his senses reeled; he was sinking, no befriending rock now met his feet; he disappeared.... In a moment he rose again, in the second stage of drowning, with his features locked in despairing agony. As he came to the surface the rolling volume of a sweeping billow met him, carried him roughly to the shore, and threw him high and dry on the white sandy beach, that was glimmering under the scorching rays of a fiery sun.
The tide ebbed away and left Appadocca on that which was now dry land. Nature was overwhelmed, and he seemed scarcely strong enough to rally from the swoon. There he lay, far from human succour, with the land rising perpendicularly from the beach, for a great distance away along the shore, and thus shutting out to those who might inhabit that part of the country, any immediate view of the sea, or the shore below. The fugitive might, have lain in this state until nature, by an effort scarcely to be expected in his condition, might have suddenly revived, or what was the more probable, life might have quietly departed from the miserable man, had not the same fortune which seemed all along to befriend him, again interposed to foster still the spark of life which now scarcely lived in him.
A wild bull, maddened with fury, came bounding over the heights. The animal was so headlong in its race, that rushing to the ridge of the precipitous highlands, ere it could abate its speed, it was borne away by its own impetus over the ledge, and with a tremendous bound, it rolled dead at the foot of the still insensible Appadocca.
In a few moments two horsemen appeared above, and reining up their horses carefully at the edge, looked down on the late object of their chase. They were children of the Savannahs—the Bedouins of South America. They were two Llaneros, their lassos were coiled in wide circles round one arm, while with the other, they clutched a short spear and the powerful reins with which they governed their still unbroken horses. They looked carefully at the now motionless animal, which but a second before careered so proudly over the plain, and was so formidable to them, shrugged their shoulders, and were turning their horses’ heads to return, when the attention of one of them, seemed attracted by an object at the foot of which the body of the dead bull lay.
“Es un hombre—’Tis a man,” both of them said, with great excitement. “’Tis a man, go you and look at him, Juancito.”
One dismounted, and, leaving his horse in charge of the other, scrambled down the rocks to the beach. He examined the body and cried out to his companion above, that life was still in it.
“Esta un hombre de cualidad, he is a great man,” he added.
Moved by their spirit of native hospitality, and partly influenced by the not unselfish motive of saving the life of a great man, the two Llaneros began to devise the means of getting Appadocca on the dry land above, and of conveying him to the house of the Ranchero, whose oxen they tended. But it was next to impossible to carry him up those rocks on which only the most steady-footed could manage to move; besides, it was necessary for one to remain above to hold the horses which, unguarded and unrestrained, would have obeyed their strong instinct and scampered off to their native wilds.
In this difficulty the natural recourse of the Llaneros was to their lassos. But those could scarcely be used, as the projections of the rocks would have shattered in a thousand pieces the person whom they designed to save, if they undertook to hoist him up along their rugged surface. They, therefore, had to think of some other expedient: but no other occurred to them, and they were obliged to recur to their lassos, in the use of which they were so long and perfectly practiced. They thought, however, in conjunction with the resolution of adopting this expedient, of removing Appadocca to another part of the beach, from which the rocks did not rise so roughly. This was easily done, and having fastened their lassos together, they secured one end to Appadocca, and the other to one of the horses; one of the Llaneros spurred the animal forward, while the other remained at the edge to guide the rope as much as it was in his power to do.
By this means the still insensible Appadocca, was brought safely on the table land. After the violent shaking he had received, he seemed to come to himself a little; he opened his eyes, but it was only for a moment. He was no longer insensible, but he was totally prostrated, and sank again into an inactive condition. He was then placed on the saddle before one of the Llaneros, and they rode off towards the house, whose roof could be barely discerned from amidst the clustering branches of the trees by which it was surrounded.