“He is a heathen; his oath is worthless; don’t trust him, let the girls go,” whispered the padre in my ear.

But I had already made up my mind.  It was on my conscience to keep faith with the girls; I wanted neither to kill the cacique nor see his men kill the tame Indians, and whatever might befall me “up yonder” I should at any rate get away from San Andrea de Huanaco.

“The die is cast; I will go with you,” I said, turning to Gondocori.

“Now, I know, beyond a doubt, that my brother is the bravest of the brave.  He fears not the unknown.”

I asked if Gahra might bear me company.

“At his own risk.  But I cannot answer for his safety.  Mamcuna loves not black people.”

This was not very encouraging, and after I had explained the matter to Gahra I strongly advised him to stay where he was.  But he said he was my man, that he owed me his liberty, and would go with me to the end, even though it should cost him his life.

CHAPTER XXI.

A FIGHT FOR LIFE.

We have left behind us the montano, with its verdant uplands and waving forests, its blooming valleys, flower-strewed savannas, and sunny waters, and are crawling painfully along a ledge, hardly a yard wide, stern gray rocks all round us, a foaming torrent only faintly visible in the prevailing gloom a thousand feet below.  Our mules, obtained at the last village in the fertile region, move at the speed of snails, for the path is slippery and insecure, and one false step would mean death for both the rider and the ridden,

Presently the gorge widens into a glen, where forlorn flowers struggle toward the scanty light and stunted trees find a precarious foothold among the rocks and stones.  Soon the ravine narrows again, narrows until it becomes a mere cleft; the mule-path goes up and down like some mighty snake, now mounting to a dizzy height, anon descending to the bed of the thundering torrent.  The air is dull and sepulchral, an icy wind blows in our faces, and though I am warmly clad, and wrapped besides in a thick poncho, I shiver to the bone.

At length we emerge from this valley of the shadow of death, and after crossing an arid yet not quite treeless plain, begin to climb by many zigzags an almost precipitous height.  The mules suffer terribly, stopping every few minutes to take breath, and it is with a feeling of intense relief that, after an ascent of two hours, we find ourselves on the cumbre, or ridge of the mountain.

For the first time since yesterday we have an unobstructed view.  I dismount and look round.  Backward stretches an endless expanse of bleak and stormy-swept billowy mountains; before us looms, in serried phalanx, the western Cordillera, dazzling white, all save one black-throated colossus, who vomits skyward thick clouds of ashes and smoke, and down whose ragged flanks course streams of fiery lava.