the place
was indefatigably watched and strongly guarded day and night. Now, all
this surveillance, at first galling and irksome in the extreme,
eventually became more serious in its results. It told upon their
nerves. It was ominous--depressing. They were as completely shut away
from the outer world in this wild and remote fastness of the Igazipuza
as though shipwrecked on a desert island. Those grey cliff walls that
encircled them became hateful, horrible, repellent. They were even as
the walls of a tomb.

"Well, Ridgeley, I own this is getting serious," said Dawes, one morning
as they sat on the waggon-box moodily smoking the pipe of bitter
reflection. "And the worst of it is I see no way out of it. I've been
in a queer corner or two in my time, but never did I feel so thoroughly
like a rat in a trap as now. There's no way of climbing these infernal
cliffs; leastways, not with our horses, and without them, we might
almost as well stop here, for we should be overhauled and lugged back to
a dead certainty. The way we came up is no go, either."

"No, it isn't," agreed Gerard, despondently. "I don't want to croak,
Dawes; but it strikes me the tenure of our lives is not worth a great
deal to any one who thought to do a good spec by purchasing it."

The suspense, the daily, hourly apprehension under which they lived, had
made its mark upon Gerard, and even his cheerful spirits and sunny good
humour had begun to fail him. He thought of his young life, and the joy
and exhilaration of living which until lately had been his. He thought
of those he had left behind him in the Old Country. But, most of all,
full oft and continually--and he had plenty of time for thinking, little
else, in fact--he thought of May Kingsland, and that bright golden day
and happy peaceful evening he had spent in her society. How would she
feel, he wondered, when she came to hear of his death--God grant it
might not be a barbarous and lingering one--at the hands of cruel and
merciless savages?

"Don't lose heart, Ridgeley, whatever you do," said Dawes, looking at
him earnestly. "The situation is pretty black, but, please Heaven,
we'll get through to talk over it snug and safe at home one of these
days. The worst of it is that it's all my doing you're in this fix at
all. That's what I blame myself for, my lad."

"Then don't think of doing that," returned Gerard, with all his old
alacrity. "Aren't we in it together, share and sha