BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH.
"I am deceived," he murmured, after a few seconds of reflection; "these
mountains are deserted, no one would dare to venture so near the
Casa-Frama."
At this moment he felt that someone touched him slightly on the
shoulder. He turned round trembling; a man had joined him, and was
crouching behind him.
It was Don Zeno Cabral.
Since the departure from the camp, the soldier had continually remained
in the advanced guard with the three Spaniards, in order to escape the
looks of the two ladies, by whom he did not wish to be recognised till
the last moment.
"Ah, 'tis you, Don Sebastiao," said Don Pablo; "what do you think of
our situation?"
"It is bad--very bad indeed; however, I do not think it desperate,"
coldly answered the soldier.
"I am persuaded, on the contrary, that it is desperate."
"It may be so; but we are not yet dead."
"No; but pretty near to it."
"Have you thought of a means to escape from the bad position in which
we are?"
"I have thought of a thousand; but I have not thought of one which is
practicable."
"That is because you have not thought in the right direction, my dear
sir. In this world, you know as well as I do, that as long as the heart
beats in the breast, there is some resource left, however critical may
be the position in which we are placed. The remedy exists. Shall I aid
you in doing so?"
"Well! I do not stand on my self-love," answered Don Pablo slightly
smiling; "but I believe we shall have difficulty in finding the remedy."
"I am a bold man, as you are yourself. My pride revolts at the
thought of dying a ridiculous death in this mousetrap, and I wish to
escape--that's all."
"By Jove! You please me by speaking like that; you are really a
charming companion."
"You flatter me, señor."
"No. I tell you what I think; rely on me as I rely on you, and we shall
do wonders, I am sure."
"Keep your mind easy; we shall do our best, and if we fail, it will
only be after having disputed our life inch by inch in a desperate
struggle. But first, where are we?"
"We are at a few steps from the Valle del Tambo, where we should
already have been in safety a long time ago, had it not been for this
cursed avalanche."
"Very well--but," stopping himself suddenly; "did you not hear
something?" asked he.
"Yes," answered the Pincheyra; "several times I have heard that noise
strike on my ear."
"By Jove! And you have told me nothing of it."
"I feared that I was deceived; besides, you know that the country we
are traversing is a desert, and that no one can be here."
"We are here, though, eh?"
"That is not a reason; we are at home, or nearly so."
Don Zeno smiled with irony.
"That is possible; however, till we find to the contrary, let us act as
if we were certain of meeting someone."
"If there were other travellers in the neighbourhood, would they not
find themselves in the same situation as us, if not worse; and what you
take for cries to help us may probably be, on the contrary, cries of
distress."
"That is why we ought to assure ourselves of the truth."
"You are right; answer, then, if you think proper."
"Let us wait for a new cry, in order to assure ourselves as much a
possible of the direction we ought to turn to in answering."
"Be it so, let us wait," answered the Pincheyra.
They stretched themselves again on the ground, their ears to the earth,
listening with the greatest anxiety.
The situation momentarily became more critical; already several horses
had been precipitated into the gulf, and it was with extreme difficulty
that men and horses could resist the efforts of the tempest, which
every moment threatened to carry them away.
However, 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 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 drooping, his eyes fixed on
the rock; then he mechanically raised his head and made a gesture of
terror. An enormous bald vulture had swept down from the extremity of
the platform, and looked at him with a sinister expression.
Brave as the young man was, he could not support the cold and sea-green
eye of the hideous bird, which appeared to fascinate him. By an
instinctive movement he seized from his girdle one of his pistols, and
discharged it at the vulture, which immediately flew away with a harsh
and discordant cry.
The noise of the explosion, re-echoed from chasm to chasm like so many
thunderclaps, only gave place to silence, when it had reached the
regions of eternal snow, where it died amidst their majestic solitudes.
But scarcely had the sound ceased, than the cry to help him, which had
already struck the ear of the partisan, resounded again.
The young man regained hope. Gathering all his powers in order to
give greater effect to his voice, he answered by a similar cry. Then
immediately the cry was repeated, but this time above him.
Convinced that men were near him, and not knowing what means to use
to inform them of his whereabouts, Zeno Cabral discharged his second
pistol; nearly at the same time a formidable explosion burst over his
head; then, when silence had been re-established, a sonorous and clear
voice twice cried out to him:
"Courage! Courage!"
Zeno Cabral was compelled to support himself against a rock to prevent
himself from falling; a convulsive trembling agitated his limbs; a
harsh cry escaped from his panting breast; his body lost that agitation
that fear had given it, and he hid his head in his hands, and melted
into tears.
If he had not wept he would have gone mad, or he would have succumbed
to the repeated attacks of the poignant emotions which for some hours
had continually assailed him, and had at last crushed his energy, and
almost annihilated his will.
Ten minutes--ten ages--thus passed without the partisan perceiving
anything to induce him to believe that anyone was watching to save him.
Anxiety began again to weigh heavily on his heart, when suddenly he saw
above the crest of the precipice, the copper-coloured head of an Indian.
"Here I am!" cried he, immediately advancing.
"We see you," answered someone. "Are you wounded; can you help
yourself?"
"I am not wounded, thank God," said he; "and I have all my energies."
"So much the better, for the ascent will be difficult. We will throw
you a lasso; you must tie it to your body, and we will draw you up, as
you do not appear to be in a position to climb, with a cord."
"Throw me down cord. I will keep it away from the edge, and fix it
firmly at a certain distance, so as not to be swayed about."
"Well! Wait; we will pay you out the cord."
The Indian disappeared, but almost immediately a pretty thick cord,
with knots a little apart from each other, descended slowly. They
had attached a stone of a good weight to the end, to prevent it from
drifting about However, the wind was still so high that notwithstanding
this precaution it was so driven about as to seriously disquiet the
young man.
However, when the stone touched the platform, either from its weight,
or because the storm had lost its intensity, it was easy enough for
the young man to take it. He immediately occupied himself in fixing it
firmly in the fissure of the rock.
Then the young man, for whom this ascent, perilous as it would have
been for anyone else, was but child's play, thanks to his strength and
skill, seized the cord and mounted.
Four men received him, when he put his foot on the path.
"Welcome to terra firma!" said the one who appeared to be the master,
laughing and holding out his hand.
"Thank you," answered Zeno Cabral, and at last, overcome by so many
emotions; he sank, half fainting, into the arms of his unknown friends.
They, with the gentlest solicitude, used every means in their power to
restore his failing energies, with what success we shall see later on.