as quitted
the defile and entered the smaller of the two valleys connected by it.
Guided by the Tuerto, they presently approached a projecting hill,
jutting out into the valley like some huge buttress placed there to
support the mountain wall. It was of small elevation, but its sides were
too perpendicular to be climbed, although that circumstance was
partially concealed by the trees growing at its base. Its summit also
was covered with trees, and its rocky flanks were clothed with ivy. The
guerillas turned into a wood extending to some distance along the foot
of the mountain, and made their way with some difficulty through the
closely planted trunks and thick brushwood. Presently the sound of
falling water was audible, increasing in loudness as they proceeded,
until its cause became visible in a cascade that splashed down the
mountain side. A rocky pool received the foaming element, and fed a
pellucid stream that soon disappeared amongst the trees, on its way to
irrigate and fertilize the neighbouring fields. The water fell from the
least elevated part of the mountain buttress above described, a height
of seventy or eighty feet.

"This is the place," said El Tuerto to the Mochuelo. The latter nodded,
and again ordering a halt, passed the word for the men to sit down upon
the grass and observe the strictest silence. Divesting themselves of
their belts and muskets, El Tuerto and Paco now approached a lofty tree
growing at a short distance from the cascade, and whose upper boughs
reached to the top of the precipice, and to the astonishment of Herrera
and Torres, and indeed of all who were sufficiently near to distinguish
their movements, began to climb its knotty and uneven trunk. In
obedience, however, to the order for silence, no one asked a question of
the Mochuelo, who alone seemed aware of the meaning of this
manoeuvre. Soon the two climbers reached the uppermost limits of the
gigantic tree, and creeping cautiously along one of them, landed safely
at the top of the precipice. For an instant they were visible like dark
shadows against the starry sky, and then they disappeared amongst the
trees.

Scarcely five minutes had elapsed, when Herrera and Torres, who were
nearest to the torrent, observed, to their great surprise, that the fall
of water seemed of less volume. They watched it, the diminution
continued, and presently its bed remained bare and dry, with the
exception of a slight trickling, which each moment less