thered up the bridle of my
horse, and drew it within my fingers, which were agitated by a
nervous tremor."

"'Yet one moment more,' I said to the colonel, for I have need of all my
coolness to carry into execution the fearful manoeuver which I am about
to commence."

"'Granted,' replied Garduno."

"My education, as I have told you, had been in the country. My
childhood, and part of my earliest youth, had almost been passed on
horseback. I may say, without flattering myself, that if there was any
one in the world capable of executing this equestrian feat, it was
myself. I rallied myself with an almost supernatural effort, and
succeeded in recovering my entire self-possession, in the very face of
death. Taking it at the worst, I had already braved it too often to be
any longer alarmed at it. From that instant, I dared to hope afresh."

"As soon as my horse felt, for the first time since my rencounter with
the colonel, the bit compressing his mouth, I perceived that he trembled
beneath me. I strengthened myself firmly on my stirrups, to make the
terrified animal understand that his master no longer trembled. I held
him up with bridle and the hams, as every good horseman does in a
dangerous passage, and, with the bridle, the body, and the spur,
together, succeeded in backing him a few paces. His head was already a
greater distance from that of the horse of the colonel, who encouraged
me all he could with his voice. This done, I let the poor, trembling
brute, who obeyed me in spite of his terror, repose for a few moments,
and then recommenced the same manoeuver. All on a sudden, I felt his
hind legs give way under me. A horrible shudder ran through my whole
frame. I closed my eyes, as if about to roll to the bottom of the abyss,
and I gave to my body a violent impulse on the side next to the
hacienda, the surface of which offered not a single projection, not a
tuft of weeds to check my descent. This sudden movement joined to the
desperate struggles of my horse, was the salvation of my life. He had
sprung up again on his legs, which seemed ready to fall from under him,
so desperately did I feel them tremble."

"I had succeeded in reaching between the brink of the precipice and the
wall of the building, a spot some few inches broader. A few more would
have enabled me to turn him round; but to attempt it here would have
been fatal, and I dared not venture. I sought to resume my backward
progress, step by step. Twice the h