The Flying Horseman. Gustave Aimard
completely share your opinion on that matter."
"So I can depend upon you?"
"Most thoroughly; but what can we do?"
"Bethink yourself; you know these mountains well, do you not?"
"They do not possess a gorge – a hidden retreat – that I have not twenty times explored."
"Good! You are sure, then, of the place where we are?"
"Oh, perfectly."
"The path we follow, is it the only one that leads to the place where you wish us to go?"
"There is another, but to take that, it would be necessary we retrace our steps for at least four leagues."
"We could never accomplish that. What direction does this path take?"
"Upon my word, I cannot positively tell you."
"We have only one recourse left," pursued Don Zeno; "it is to join the man whose cry to help us has been several times heard."
"I should think nothing better; but how shall we descend the precipice?"
"This is my project. We will take all the lassos of those poltroons, and tie them end to end; one of us will tie the end of these round his body, and will attempt the descent, whilst his companions will hold the rope in his hand, letting it out only in such a way as, precarious as the support may be, it may serve to maintain the equilibrium of the one who descends. Do you agree with it?"
"Yes," decisively answered the Pincheyra, "but on one condition."
"What is it?"
"It is that it shall be I who descends."
"No, I cannot admit that condition; but I propose another."
"Let us hear it."
"Time presses; we must make an end of this. Every minute that we lose brings us nearer death. Let chance decide it."
The partisan drew from the pockets of his trousers a purse full of gold, and placed it between himself and the Pincheyra.
"I do not know what this purse contains," said he, "I swear it. Odd or even! If you guess, you descend; if not, you give up the place to me."
Notwithstanding the prostration in which they were, some of the adventurers, excited by the irresistible attraction of this strange game, played in the midst of a horrible tempest, and of which death was the stake, half rose up, and fixed their ardent gaze on the two.
Don Pablo cried Even, and then the purse was opened.
"Forty-seven!" cried Don Zeno, in a joyful accent; "I have gained."
"True," answered Don Pablo; "do as you wished to do!"
Without losing a moment the partisan seized the lassos from the Pincheyras, tied them firmly together, and after having fixed one of the ends round his girdle, he gave the other to Don Pablo, and prepared to commence his hazardous descent.
The countenance of Don Zeno was grave and sad.
"I confide these two poor ladies to you," said he in a low voice; "if, as is probable, I shall not be able to resist the strength of the tempest, promise me to watch over them till your last breath."
"Go boldly; I swear to you to do it."
"Thank you," merely answered Don Zeno.
He knelt down, addressed to Heaven a mental prayer; then, seizing his knife in one hand, and his dagger in the other:
"God help me," said he firmly, and in a crawling attitude he approached the edge of the precipice.
Don Zeno commenced his descent with the courage of a man who, while he has resolutely risked the sacrifice of his life, nevertheless applies all the energy of his will to the success of his perilous enterprise.
The edge of the precipice was less steep than it appeared from above. Although with great difficulty, the partisan succeeded in maintaining his equilibrium pretty well, by holding on to the grass and shrubbery which were within his reach.
Don Zeno continued to descend, as upon a narrow ledge, which seemed insensibly to retreat, and upon which he could only maintain himself by a desperate effort. Then, having reached a tree which had thrown out its branches horizontally, he disappeared in the midst of the foliage, and after a moment the adventurers felt that the tension of the lasso, which they had given out inch by inch, had suddenly ceased, Don Pablo drew towards him the cord; it came without resistance, floating backwards and forwards to the sport of the wind.
Don Zeno had let go his hold. It was in vain that the adventurers tried to discover the young man. A considerable lapse of time passed; they could not discover him; then all of a sudden, the tree, in the branches of which he had disappeared, oscillated slowly, and fell with a noise down the precipice.
"Oh," cried Don Pablo in despair, throwing himself back, "the unhappy man; he is lost!"
Meanwhile the partisan, cool and calm, looking at danger in its full extent, but regarding it, thanks to his habits of desert life, in a common-sense light, had continued his terrible journey, step by step, only advancing slowly, and with precaution.
He thus attained the tree of which we have spoken, and which formed nearly a right angle with the precipice, just below the spot where the avalanche had blocked up the path, although between the tree and the other edge of the precipice, the distance was pretty considerable. However, Zeno Cabral, after mature reflection, did not despair of getting past it.
To do this, he relieved himself of the lasso, which had only become useless to him.
Encircling the trunk of the tree, he raised himself as far as the principal branch, and making use of it as a bridge, at the same time holding on to the upper branches, he advanced towards its extremity.
But scarcely had he reached halfway the length of the branch, than he perceived with horror that the tree, broken by the fall of the avalanche, oscillated under him. A shudder of terror ran through his veins; his hair stood on end; a cold sweat broke upon his temples; his look was riveted, spite of himself, upon the yawning gulf which opened beneath, ready to bury him; giddiness seized him; he felt that he was lost, and closed his eyes, murmuring a last prayer. But at the moment when he was about to abandon himself and fall into the gulf, the instinct of life suddenly awoke. By a last effort of will he subdued the giddiness, ordered, so to speak, his arteries to cease to beat, and resolving to try a last effort, he darted along the branch which bent more and more under him, sprang ahead and reached the opposite edge of the precipice, at the very moment when the tree, suddenly losing its balance, rolled into the gulf with a horrible sound.
Weakened by the terrible effort he had been obliged to make, and not yet knowing whether he was lost or saved, the young man remained for some minutes stretched on the ground, pale, panting, his eyes starting; not caring to think of the miraculous way in which he had escaped from a nearly inevitable death, or to stir – so much did he still seem to feel the ground stealing from under him.
However, by degrees he became calmer and more rational.
The place where he was was a kind of platform, situated a few yards below the path, which at that place declined gradually as far as the valley.
Although the position of the partisan was much improved, it was still very dangerous. In fact, the side of the precipice, above which he was literally suspended, rose perpendicularly, and it was impossible to scale it. Zeno Cabral had only succeeded in changing his mode of death. If he no longer feared to be precipitated to the bottom of the abyss, he ascertained by a look the certainty that, unless by some extraordinary help, he could not quit the place where he was, and that, consequently, if he could not blow his brains out, or plunge his poignard into his heart, he was condemned to die miserably of hunger – a prisoner on the pedestal that he had succeeded in reaching.
The partisan supported himself against the granite wall, to shelter himself against the violence of the wind, which whirled about the chasm with ominous sounds; and although he had a conviction of his powerlessness, he nevertheless thought over in his mind a means of escaping from the frightful death which threatened him.
For some minutes he thus remained, his head