Part 14 (1/2)

”Then you are the very man I want. I'll tell you all about it after dinner. Mustn't send you off without satisfying the inner man, eh?”

Jose glanced at me with a smile, as much as to say, ”I wasn't very far out this morning;” while I was all curiosity as to what the business might be.

As soon as we had finished, the colonel and Jose had a very earnest and confidential talk, after which my companion rejoined me, and together we left the room.

”What is it?” I asked anxiously; ”anything of importance?”

”Rather, unless the Indian has made a mistake. La Hera is hiding with a few wounded men in the mountains, not a dozen miles away.”

This was the Spanish leader whom we had defeated at Mirabe. He was a bold, das.h.i.+ng soldier, and a firm Loyalist, whose capture would deal the enemy a heavy blow.

”Get the horses ready,” said Jose, ”while I pick out a few men. We mustn't make a mess of this affair, or the colonel won't trust us again. And don't mention where we are going, up at the house. I daresay the folks are all right, but what they don't know they can't tell.”

”Where shall I meet you?”

”Outside the colonel's quarters. Now, off with you, we've no time to waste.”

The horses had benefited by their unusually long rest, and having saddled them with the help of one of our host's servants, I led them into the street. Jose soon appeared with a dozen mounted men, wild, fierce-looking fellows, and all natives.

Presently the guide came out, and directly afterwards the colonel, who spoke a few words, telling us that we were bound on an important errand, which he trusted we should accomplish successfully. Then the guide placed himself, on foot, beside Jose's horse, and we moved off.

He led us at first, purposely, in a wrong direction, in case of prying eyes, turning back at the end of a mile or so, and then steering across a wild and lonely desert track. Having covered nearly a dozen miles, we came to a tiny hamlet at the foot of the mountains. Halting here, we left our horses in charge of two men and pressed forward on foot.

Fortunately, in one way though not in another, it was a moonlight night, and we could see where to step. All around us towered huge mountains, grim and forbidding. We marched in single file by the edge of steep precipices, so close sometimes that we seemed to hang over the awful abyss. Further and further we penetrated into the dreary recesses. We seemed to be a body of ghosts traversing a dreary world.

No man spoke; we heard the cry neither of bird nor of animal. The only sound to break the eerie silence was the occasional clatter of a stone, which, loosened by our pa.s.sage, rolled over into the unknown depths.

I looked neither to right nor to left, but kept my gaze fixed on Jose, who walked before me. The track narrowed down so that it hardly afforded footing for one, and I prayed in my heart that we might soon come to a better vantage-ground.

I was no coward, and since leaving home had met with more than one adventure, but this was the most perilous of all. Despite every effort to keep firm, my limbs trembled, my head grew dizzy; I was seized by a strong temptation to launch myself into s.p.a.ce. The fit pa.s.sed as suddenly as it had come, but I felt the sweat trickling down my face.

Presently we emerged on to a broad platform, and Jose, stopping, seized my hand. He was trembling now, but it was at the thought of danger past. One by one the men stole cautiously along while we waited, watching with fascinated eyes, and drawing a deep breath of relief as each stepped safely from the perilous path. Whether they had also felt fearful I could not tell; their faces were wonderfully impa.s.sive, and, except when roused by savage anger, quite expressionless.

At a sign from Jose they dropped to the ground behind a group of boulders, and he, addressing them in some Indian dialect, issued his instructions. I gathered very little from his speech; but presently the men disappeared, gliding like serpents along the side of the cliffs, and leaving me with Jose and the guide.

”I don't much like this, Jack,” said Jose. ”I almost wish you had stayed behind. I hope the colonel can depend on this fellow.”

”What is it?” I asked. ”I suppose we didn't come out just for the pleasure of exercising ourselves on that goat-track?”

”No,” said he; ”though, to be sure, that was an uncommon diversion.

The real thing is just about to begin, and this is the way of it.

According to the guide, La Hera is in a cave close at hand.”

”All the more chance of trapping him.”

”I'm not so sure of that. The entrance to the cave is some sixty feet from the ground, in the side of a steep cliff.”

”Well, we've had some experience in mountain-climbing.”

”Yes, but not this sort. The face of the cliff is as perpendicular as the side of a house.”