A piercing cry,—a cry which rose from the abyss—which drowned their voices and was heard above the roar of the cascade, caused Fabian to stretch his head forward and withdraw it again in horror. Hanging to the branches of a shrub which bent beneath his weight, and which scarce adhering to the sides of the rock, was fast giving way, Cuchillo hung over the abyss, howling forth his terror and anguish.
“Help!” he shouted, in a voice despairing as the damned. “Help! if you are human beings—help!”
The three friends exchanged a glance of unutterable meaning, as each one wiped the sweat from his brow.
Suddenly the bandit’s voice grew faint, and amidst horrible bursts of laughter, like the shrieks of a lunatic, were heard the last inarticulate words that escaped his lips.
A moment after, and the noise of the cascade alone broke the silence of the desert. The abyss had swallowed up him whose life had been a long tissue of crime.
Chapter Fifty Two.
The Man of the Red Kerchief.
Six months have elapsed since the three hunters, without deigning to carry with them a single grain of the treasures of the valley of gold, directed their steps, following the course of the Rio Gila, to the plains of Texas. The rainy had succeeded to the dry season, without anything being known of their fate, or of the expedition commanded by Don Estevan de Arechiza.