“Because there may be more of them. You suggested just now the possibility of a squadron. How if we meet a regiment?”
“We should be in rather a bad scrape.”
“We are in a bad scrape, amigo mio. Unless, I am greatly mistaken the regiment of Irun, or, at any rate, a squadron of it is on the march hitherward. If they started at sunrise and rested during the heat of the day, this is about the time the advance-guard would be here. Having no enemy to fear in these parts, they would naturally break up into small detachments; there has been no rain for weeks, and the dust raised by a large body of horsemen is simply stifling. However, we may as well go forward to certain death as go back to it. Besides, I hate going back in any circumstances. And we have just one chance. We must hurry on and ride for our lives.”
“I don’t quite see that. We shall meet them all the sooner.”
Carmen made some reply which I failed to catch, and as the way was rough and Pizarro required all my attention, I did not repeat the question.
We passed rapidly up the brow, and when we reached more even ground, put our horses to the gallop and went on, up hill and down dale, until Carmen, uttering an exclamation, pulled his horse into a walk.
“I think we can get down here,” he said.
We had reached a place where, although the mountain to our right was still precipitous, the ravine seemed narrower and the sides less steep.
“I think we can,” repeated Carmen. “At any rate, we must try.”
And with that he dismounted, and leading his horse to the brink of the ravine, incontinently disappeared.