The Rifle Rangers Part 39

We crept slowly down, our mules at times seeming to walk on their heads.

The hissing of the torrent grew gradually louder, until our ears were filled with its hoa.r.s.e rus.h.i.+ng.

I heard Raoul below me shouting some words in a warning voice, when suddenly he seemed borne away, as if he had been tumbled over the precipice.

I expected to feel myself next moment launched after him into empty s.p.a.ce, when my mule, uttering a loud whinny, sprang forward and downward.

Down--down! the next leap into eternity! No--she keeps her feet! she gallops along a level path! I am safe!

I was swung about until the thongs seemed to cut through my limbs; and with a heavy plunge I felt myself carried thigh-deep into water.

Here the animal suddenly halted.

As soon as I could gain breath I shouted at the top of my voice for the Frenchman.

"Here, Captain!" he answered, close by my side, but, as I fancied, with a strange, gurgling voice.

"Are you hurt, Raoul?" I inquired.

"Hurt? No, Captain."

"What was it, then?"

"Oh! I wished to warn you, but I was too late. I might have known they would stampede, as the poor brutes have been no better treated than ourselves. Hear how they draw it up!"

"I am choking!" I exclaimed, listening to the water as it filtered through the teeth of my mule.

"Do as I do, Captain," said Raoul, speaking as if from the bottom of a well.

"How?" I asked.

"Bend down, and let the water run into your mouth."

This accounted for Raoul's voice sounding so strangely.

"They may not give us a drop," continued he. "It is our only chance."

"I have not even that," I replied, after having vainly endeavoured to reach the surface with my face.

"Why?" asked my comrade.

"I cannot reach it."

"How deep are you?"

"To the saddle-flaps."

"Ride this way, Captain. It's deeper here."

"How can I? My mule is her own master, as far as I am concerned."

"_Parbleu_!" said the Frenchman. "I did not think of that."

But, whether to oblige me, or moved by a desire to cool her flanks, the animal plunged forward into a deeper part of the stream.

After straining myself to the utmost, I was enabled to "duck" my head.

In this painful position I contrived to get a couple of swallows; but I should think I took in quite as much at my nose and ears.

Clayley and Chane followed our example, the Irishman swearing loudly that it was a "burnin' shame to make a dacent Christyin dhrink like a horse in winkers."

Our guards now commenced driving our mules out of the water. As we were climbing the bank, someone touched me lightly upon the arm; and at the same instant a voice whispered in my ear, "Courage, Captain!"

I started--it was the voice of a female. I was about to reply, when a soft, small hand was thrust under the tapojo, and pushed something between my lips. The hand was immediately withdrawn, and I heard the voice urging a horse onward.

The clatter of hoofs, as of a horse pa.s.sing me in a gallop, convinced me that this mysterious agent was gone, and I remained silent.

"Who can it be Jack? No. Jack has a soft voice--a small hand; but how could he be here, and with his hands free? No--no--no! Who then? It was certainly the voice of a woman--the hand, too. What other should have made this demonstration? I know no other--it must--it must have been--."

I continued my a.n.a.lysis of probabilities, always arriving at the same result. It was both pleasant and painful: pleasant to believe _she_ was thus, like an angel, watching over me--painful to think that she might be in the power of my fiendish enemy.

But is she so? Lincoln's blow may have ended him. We have heard nothing of him since. Would to heaven--!

It was an impious wish, but I could not control it.

"What have I got between my lips? A slip of paper! Why was it placed there, and not in my bosom or my b.u.t.ton-hole? Ha! there is more providence in the manner of the act than at first thought appears. How could I have taken it from either the one or the other, bound as I am?

Moreover it may contain what would destroy the writer, if known to--.

Cunning thought--for one so young and innocent, too--but love--."

I pressed the paper against the tapojo, covering it with my lips, so as to conceal it in case the blind should be removed.

"Halted again?"

"It is the ruin, Captain--the old convent of Santa Bernardina."

"But why do they halt here?"

"Likely to noon and breakfast--that on the ridge was only their _desayuna_. The Mexicans of the _tierra caliente_ never travel during mid-day. They will doubtless rest here until the cool of the evening."

"I trust they will extend the same favour to us," said Clayley: "G.o.d knows we stand in need of rest. I'd give them three months' pay for an hour upon the treadmill, only to stretch my limbs."

"They will take us down, I think--not on our account, but to ease the mules. Poor brutes! they are no parties to this transaction."

Raoul's conjecture proved correct. We were taken out of our saddles, and, being carefully bound as before, we were hauled into a damp room, and flung down upon the floor. Our captors went out. A heavy door closed after them, and we could hear the regular footfall of a sentry on the stone pavement without. For the first time since our capture we were left alone. This my comrades tested by rolling themselves all over the floor of our prison to see if anyone was present with us. It was but a scant addition to our liberty; but we could converse freely, and that was something.

Note. Desayuna is a slight early meal.