Chapter Thirty Nine.
Up the Mountain.
“We’re going to have a night black as charcoal,” said Rivas, running his eye along the outline of the Cordilleras, and taking survey of the sky beyond.
“Will that be against us?” queried the young Irishman.
“In one way, yes; in another, for us. Our pursuers will be sure to ride all round the Pedregal, and leave a picket wherever they see the resemblance of path or trail leading out. If it were to come on moonlight—as luckily it won’t—we’d had but a poor chance to get past them without being seen. And that would signify a fight against awkward odds—numbers, arms, everything. We must steal past somehow, and so the darkness will be in our favour.”
As may be deduced from this snatch of dialogue, they were still in the Pedregal. But the purple twilight was now around them, soon to deepen into the obscurity of night; sooner from their having got nearly across the lava field, and under the shadow of Ajusco, which, like a black wall, towered up against the horizon. They had stooped for a moment, Rivas himself cautiously creeping up to an elevated spot, and reconnoitring the ground in front.
“It will be necessary for us to reach the mountains before morning,” he added after a pause. “Were we but common gaol-birds who had bolted, it wouldn’t much signify, and we’d be safe here for days, or indeed for ever. The authorities of Mexico, such as they are at present, don’t show themselves very zealous in the pursuit of escaped criminals. But neither you nor I, Señor Kearney, come under that category—unluckily for us, just now—and the Pedregal, labyrinth though it be, will get surrounded and explored—every inch of it within the next forty-eight hours. So out of it we must move this night, or never.”
Twilight on the table-lands of the western world is a matter of only a few minutes: and, while he was still speaking, the night darkness had drawn around them. It hindered them not from proceeding onwards, however, the Mexican once more leading off, after enforcing upon the others to keep close to him, and make no noise avoidable.