Lawrence and Pedro were standing in consultation over the fallen bandit when the negro came back panting from the chase.
“Da’s wan good job dooed, anyhow,” he said. “What’s you be do wid him?”
“What would you recommend?” asked Pedro.
The negro pointed significantly to the precipice, but the guide shook his head.
“No, I cannot kill in cold blood, though I have no doubt he richly deserves it. We’ll bind his hands and leave him. It may be weakness on my part, but we can’t take him on, you know.”
While Pedro was in the act of binding the robber, a wild shriek, as of some one in terrible agony, startled them. Looking cautiously over the precipice, where the sound seemed to come from, they saw that the man whom Pedro had ridden down was hanging over the abyss by the boughs of a small shrub. His steed lay mangled on the rocks of the river bank at the bottom. There was an agonised expression in the man’s countenance which would have touched a heart much less soft than that of Lawrence Armstrong. Evidently the man’s power of holding on was nearly exhausted, and he could not repress a shriek at the prospect of the terrible death which seemed so imminent.
Being a practised mountaineer, Lawrence at once, without thought of personal danger, and moved only by pity, slipped over the crags, and, descending on one or two slight projections, the stability of which even a Swiss goat might have questioned, reached the bush. A look of fierce and deadly hate was on the robber’s face, for, judging of others by himself, he thought, no doubt, that his enemy meant to hasten his destruction.
“Here, catch hold—I’ll save you!” cried Lawrence, extending his strong right hand.
A glance of surprise told that he was understood. The bandit let go the hold of one of his hands and made a convulsive grasp at his rescuer. Their fingers touched, but at the same moment the branch gave way, and, with a cry of wild despair, the wretched man went headlong down.
Not, however, to destruction. The effort he had made threw him slightly to one side of the line which his horse had taken in its fall. The difference was very slight indeed, yet it sufficed to send him towards another bush lower down the cliff. Still, the height he had to fall would have ensured the breaking of all his bones if the bush had not hurled him off with a violent rebound.