My ankle was so much eased that I could have slept were it not for the myriad mosquitoes that attacked me, the while dinning their horrid song in my ear. As it was I got an occasional short snatch of rest with dozing till a dozen or more wee living stilettos got home in my flesh, and brought me awake and set me to thrashing about with my palm-fan again. And once or twice I jumped awake with a queer notion in my consciousness, and that was that one or more of those mosquitoes had learned to crow like a cock, for I seemed to have heard such music while my head nodded.
I was glad when the dawn broke and sent the greater part of my pests back to their lairs once more. I made a meal out of the packet of grub, getting my drink from the creek. And then I searched about in the wood, till I found a stick having a crotch to fit under my arm; and so I made me a wooden leg for my lame side. I hobbled over to the edge of the bit of forest, where I could command that place where I had suffered my fall.
I gazed to the cliff top and waved, hoping to attract any of my friends who should be on watch. But no living sign showed there. And then, finally, I set myself to watching for signs of the enemy.
It was a tedious wait, though one not so very long. Less than two hours had passed when I saw a figure come out of the brush back up the vale a piece. Though he was black of face, I saw it was Duran. I concealed myself more carefully in the undergrowth and watched his approach.
When he came opposite me, less than fifty yards away, I saw he carried a pack. It was doubtless no more nor less than another freight of the gold in bamboo. He passed on down the vale, looking neither to right nor left, never dreaming that any enemy eyes could win to a near view of any part of his retreat. As he disappeared, presently, round a portion of the wood, I had also a very good guess as to what was to be his employment down there, and had I had full use of both my nether limbs, I should have followed and witnessed his manœuvres. As it was I must content myself with picturing him in my mind's eye, at setting afloat in the little stream one richly-laden bamboo section after the other, and I could see them bobbing at the surface, as they moved in line to a hole in the rocky wall, and at last find lodgment against the reed net within the cavern.
My heart danced with anticipation, as I crouched there in the edge of the wood, awaiting the next scene of Duran's performance. And this, too, I knew as well as if I held a printed "synopsis" in my hand.
It was not without some tremor of apprehension, too, that I at last beheld the figure of Duran appear again on the back trail, for I was not at all sure that I had not left some traces of that violent entry of mine into this sunken pasture. And sure enough, when he arrived at the place, he came to a stand, and gazed on the torn vines and the rocky debris that had accompanied me down that cliff-side. His hand went up to his ear in that characteristic manner of his. And my breath came hard, in the more than half dread that he should discover my trail leading here to the wood.
It was the accident to my ankle that saved me, for having crawled away on hands and knees, I had left no tell-tale prints of shoes in the sod. He must have concluded that it was a bit of landslide had disturbed the growth, for he turned from his inspection finally with an air of unconcern.
Duran moved over to the left a piece, and then began to mount the cliff-side on a gently sloping ledge, which came to an end among the vines I had so violently disarranged. Here he got his hand on that little rope by which I had made a portion of my descent. For some time he carried on a species of struggle with the line. (Doubtless I had disarranged that thing too.) But at last things seemed to have come right; he began to pay out the line; and then I could see something unfold and drop down the cliff-side, which turned out to be some form of rope ladder. As I afterward learned, his halliard worked through a pulley bent on a limb of those cedars aloft, and was strung in and out among the rounds of the ladder, to be tied to the bottom round. When he was abroad, rope ladder, halliard and all was stowed up there; when he was home in this hidden vale, the ladder was pulled aloft, and the halliard made fast in hiding among the vines. The reason for this latter precaution I was yet to learn.
Directly, Duran was climbing above by his ladder, and then I saw his form disappear amongst those cedars on the cliff-top. And now he was gone to the cavern in the cliff to recover, and stow away, that new lading of gold. I caught myself wondering now what might be the employment of my friends, whether any of them might be in any part of Duran's path. And I hoped that they would be very careful not to allow him sight of them; for we were not yet ready to give him warning that we were so close on his trail. It was not merely to discover the concealed mine that we were putting ourselves to so much trouble, and danger as well, but we had a mind to unearth so much as might be possible of the golden product, which for so many years had been filched, piecemeal, from that deposit that belonged, by miner's right of discovery, to the Brill family. To give Duran notice of our presence would manifestly but serve to place obstacles in our way.