length, while the fourth and last merchant, who stood next to me,
was being dealt with, just as in our despair we were about to
throw ourselves into the gulf before them all, fortune gave us our
opportunity. This unhappy man, having probably some inkling of the doom
which awaited him, broke suddenly from the hands of his captors, and ran
at full speed down the road. After him they went pell-mell, every thief
of them except one who remained--fortunately for us upon its farther
side--on guard by the door of the diligence in which four people, three
merchants and a priest, were now imprisoned. With laughs and shouts they
hunted their wretched quarry, firing shots as they ran, till at length
one of them overtook the man and cut him down with his _machete_.

"Don't look, but come," I whispered to my companion.

In another instant we were at the edge of the cliff, and a foot or so
below us was spread the dense, impenetrable blanket of mist. I stopped
and hesitated, for the next step might be my last.

"We can't be worse off, so God help us," said Emma, and without waiting
for me to lead her she swung herself over the edge.

To my intense relief I heard her alight within a few feet, and followed
immediately. Now I was at her side, and now we were scrambling and
slipping down the precipitous and rocky slope as swiftly as the dense
wet fog would let us. I believe that our escape was quite unnoticed. The
guard was watching the murder of the merchant, or, if he saw us, he did
not venture to leave the carriage door, and the priest who had accepted
some offer which was made to him, probably that his life would be spared
if he consented to give absolution to the murderers, was kneeling on the
ground, his face hidden in his hands.

As we went the mist grew thinner, and we could see that we were
travelling down a steep spur of the precipice, which to our left was
quite sheer, and that at the foot of it was a wide plain thickly but not
densely covered with trees. In ten minutes we were at the bottom, and
as we could neither see nor hear any sign of pursuers we paused for an
instant to rest.

Not five yards from us the cliff was broken away, and so straight that a
cat could not have climbed it.

"We chose our place well," I said pointing upwards.

"No," Emma answered, "we did not choose; it was chosen for us."

As she spoke a muffled and terrifying sound of agony reached us from
above, and then, in the layers of vapour that sti