"On, valiant friends! on!—heed not the pagans; on!" shouted Botello, as the canoes cut the water within an hundred paces of the ditch. "Thanks be to God! I see them! Hah! good! and here—Hark to his voice! how cheery!—here comes the valorous De Morla!"
As he spoke, the figure of De Morla, outstripping the wind, was seen running towards the ditch, while some of the arrows shot after him by the pursuers, and passing him, fell even at the feet of the expectant pair.
The sight of his friend kindled the ardour of Don Amador. He shouted aloud,
"On, valiant brother!—It is I! thy sworn friend of Cuenza!"
To this speech, De Morla answered with a yell, that chilled the heart of his townsman; and running without a moment's hesitation, and without slackening his speed, to the end of the broken beam, where it overhung the middle of the sluice, he sprang from it, as if assisted by its elasticity, to so great a height into the air, that, it was plain, he would clear the chasm in the bound. As he leaped, he waved his sword, and uttered a scream; a cloud of arrows at the same time whistled through the atmosphere; and when he reached the ground, twenty of these deadly missiles were sticking in his body.
The neophyte raised up his head; one arrow was in his brain:—it snapped off, as the head rolled on Amador's arm. A thrill and a gasp were the last and only manifestations of suffering. The next instant, the body of De Morla rolled down the shelving plane of the ditch, and sunk, with a few bubbles, among a hundred of his countrymen, already sepulchred therein.
CHAPTER LXI.
Meantime the reappearance of the barbarians seemed to cut off the last hope of escape from Amador and his companion; but the magician, answering the cavalier's sullen look of despair with a laugh, and pointing to the little star, which still made its way up the cloudy arch along with the moon, said, dragging him at the same time towards the artillery,
"What the spirits say, is true! All this said they, of De Morla.—May he rest with God—Amen! Fear not; be of good heart:—while the star shines, there is hope,—and hope for both; for though I have not yet read thy fate in full, still, while thou art at my side, thou canst be in no great peril. At the worst, and when the worst comes, it is written, that eagles shall come down from heaven, and bear me away on their backs.—Hast thou never a flint and dry tinder, to light me a linstock? Here hath some knavish gunner left his piece charged, and the grains of sulphur still heaped up from rimbase to cascable. A good roar now might do marvels.—Quick! they are upon us.—Fling thee under the wheels, and look but as dead as thou didst erewhile, till the cut-throats be passed.—Hah! 'fore God, dost thou hear?" he exclaimed, suddenly leaping up.—"Kalidon, soho, brave imp! and thou shalt be a-galloping yet!—Hearest thou that shout, like the clang of a bugle on a hill-top?—'Tis Cortes! and he cometh!"