The Flying Horseman. Gustave Aimard
after some minutes, which appeared to be an age, the two men again heard the cry.
This time it appeared nearer; it was sharp and perfectly distinct.
"It is a cry to help us," said Don Zeno, with joy.
And placing his two hands at the corners of his mouth, so as to carry his voice, he immediately answered by a cry not less shrill, which swept on the wind, echoed and re-echoed, to die away at a great distance.
"You are sure that is a cry to help us that we have just heard?" said the Pincheyra.
"Yes, thank God, it is," answered Zeno Cabral; "and now let us to work, for if we escape from here, master, we shall escape safe and sound; you may take my word for it."
Don Pablo shook his head sadly.
"You still doubt," pursued the hardy partisan in a tone of disdain. "Perhaps you are afraid?"
"Yes, I am afraid," candidly said the Pincheyra; "and I do not think there is anything humiliating in that avowal. I am but a man after all—very weak, and very humble before the anger of God; I cannot prevent my nerves from trembling, nor my heart from sinking."
Zeno Cabral held out his hand to him with a sympathising smile.
"Excuse me, Don Pablo," said he, in a gentle voice, "for having spoken to you as I have. A man must be really brave to avow so candidly that he is afraid."
"Thank you, Don Sebastiao," answered the Pincheyra, affected more than he wished to show. "Act, order, I will be the first to obey you."
"Above all, let us rejoin our companions; we want their aid and their counsel; let us make haste."
The two men then rejoined their companions, crawling on elbows and knees, with the same difficulty they had previously experienced; for although the weather began to brighten, the wind had not ceased to howl with fury, and to sweep the path.
In a few words, Don Pablo Pincheyra put his adherents in possession of the facts of the situation, and imparted to them the feeble hope he himself possessed. All energy had been crushed within them, and they awaited death with stolid apathy.
"There is nothing to expect from these brutes," said Zeno Cabral, with disdain: "fear has neutralised all human sentiments."
"What is to be done, then?" murmured the partisan.
"If it only depended on you and me," pursued Don Zeno—"strong, determined, and active as we are, we should soon know how to escape this peril; but I do not wish to abandon these unhappy Women."
"I 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