There was no need for any one to explain what had passed. All saw, and too clearly, that we had been chicaned; and that the wretched curs who had “sold” us, were as completely beyond our reach, as if twenty miles lay between us and them!
To be convinced of this, we had only to look down to the bottom of the barranca—sheer fifty feet, before the eye rested on the white froth flakes gliding below!
It was superfluous in Sam Brown to tell us, there was no crossing for a mile above or below. A glance at the twin cliffs, as they faced frowningly towards each other, seemed to say: that they had parted in anger, not soon to come together again!
A mile in either direction meant as much as ten—ay, twenty, upon an ordinary road. It meant the ruin of Mercedes!
“O God!” I exclaimed in my anguish, “is there no chance of our getting across?”
I was answered by the groaning of the torrent beneath my feet, and the maniac laugh of the eagle that soared majestically over my head—both seeming to mock the impuissance of man.
“A thousand dollars!” I shouted out, loud enough to be heard by the remotest of my followers, “a thousand dollars to the man who can show a way by which this chasm may be crossed!”
“Por dios, caballero!” replied a voice, coming from a quarter where it was not expected. “For the tenth part of that pretty sum I’d be willing to pledge my soul: more especially, if by so doing I can redeem my body.”
The words were in Spanish. I turned in the direction whence came the voice. I could see that it had proceeded from one of the prisoners, we had taken in the first attack.
The speaker declared himself by endeavouring to struggle to his feet, and making other gestures to attract our attention.