he shot by without stopping, on her way to Loja and Granada.

A sharp turn to the left swept us out of Antiquera, and so good was the
road that Dick and I began to laugh at the gloomy prognostications which
thus far had not been fulfilled.

My spirits rose to such a height that as we passed under the Lovers' Rock,
still haunted by the Moorish maiden and her Christian lover, I quoted
Southey, verse after verse of the old-fashioned poetry coming back to my
mind. The Pena de los Enamorados stood up like a small model of Gibraltar,
rising out of the plain; and as we wound on among other pinnacles almost
as majestic, we could see the bleached skeleton of Archidona hanging on
its mountain. Once the place had been a famous nest of brigands; and when
after climbing a tremendous hill, we had come into its long white street,
Dick was of opinion that Archidona of to-day was still an ideal summer
resort for the fraternity in case they should crave a town life. Each
low-browed house in the interminable avenue looked a fit nursery for
mysteries and secrets. Here and there a dark face framed in a knotted red
handkerchief peered from a lighted doorway, staring after the Gloria until
she had slipped over the brow of the hill to coast smoothly down another
as steep.

There, had we but known, the peaceful olive grove through which we passed
and hushed the song of nightingales was to be our last glimpse of peace.
Beyond that silver barrier lay chaos, a chaos of wild mountains, deep
chasms, and grim steppes, solitary, unpeopled, forbidding under the moon!

If we broke an axle here, with leagues to walk to the nearest farm, there
was no hope of Granada to-morrow. And now the road was equally well fitted
for breaking axles, necks, and hearts.

It was made of rock in petrified waves, among which the Gloria floundered
and buck-jumped as long ago Dick had expected her to do when she crossed
the Spanish border. Every part of her shivered as though she were a horse
in the bull-ring, and I pitied her as if she had a nerve in every spring
and chain.

"This is no road; it's a nightmare," groaned Dick. But if it were, it was
a nightmare which ran with us glaring, showing frightful fangs, for mile
after mile of horror. Just as the steep slope of a descent offered a
softer cushion for the suffering tyres, and hope stirred within us, we
broke into such a region as imagination pictures in the streets of Lisbon
after the great earthquake. Gullies and