第35章

The bay gleamed clearly and distinctly; not a shadow flecked its surface to the gray impenetrable rampart of fog that stretched like a granite wall before its entrance.On one side of the narrow road billows of monstrous grain undulated to the crest of the low hills, that looked like larger undulations of the soil, furrowed by bosky canadas or shining arroyos.Banks was startled into a burst of professional admiration.

"There's enough grain there to feed a thousand Todos Santos; and raised, too, with tools like that," he continued, pointing to a primitive plow that lay on the wayside, formed by a single forked root.A passing ox-cart, whose creaking wheels were made of a solid circle of wood, apparently sawn from an ordinary log, again plunged him into cogitation.Here and there little areas of the rudest cultivation broke into a luxuriousness of orange, lime, and fig trees.The joyous earth at the slightest provocation seemed to smile and dimple with fruit and flowers.Everywhere the rare beatitudes of Todos Santos revealed and repeated its simple story.

The fructifying influence of earth and sky; the intervention of a vaporous veil between a fiery sun and fiery soil; the combination of heat and moisture, purified of feverish exhalations, and made sweet and wholesome by the saline breath of the mighty sea, had been the beneficent legacy of their isolation, the munificent compensation of their oblivion.

A gradual and gentle ascent at the end of two hours brought the cavalcade to a halt upon a rugged upland with semi-tropical shrubbery, and here and there larger trees from the tierra templada in the evergreens or madrono.A few low huts and corrals, and a rambling hacienda, were scattered along the crest, and in the midst arose a little votive chapel, flanked by pear-trees.Near the roadside were the crumbling edges of some long-forgotten excavation.

Crosby gazed at it curiously.Touching the arm of the officer, he pointed to it.

"Una mina de plata," said the officer sententiously.

"A mine of some kind--silver, I bet!" said Crosby, turning to the others."Is it good--bueno--you know?" he continued to the officer, with vague gesticulations.

"En tiempos pasados," returned the officer gravely.

"I wonder what that means?" said Winslow.

But before Crosby could question further, the subaltern signaled to them to dismount.They did so, and their horses were led away to a little declivity, whence came the sound of running water.Left to themselves, the Americans looked around them.The cavalcade seemed to have halted near the edge of a precipitous ridge, the evident termination of the road.But the view that here met their eyes was unexpected and startling.

The plateau on which they stood seemed to drop suddenly away, leaving them on the rocky shore of a monotonous and far-stretching sea of waste and glittering sand.Not a vestige nor trace of vegetation could be seen, except an occasional ridge of straggling pallid bushes, raised in hideous simulation of the broken crest of a ghostly wave.On either side, as far as the eye could reach, the hollow empty vision extended--the interminable desert stretched and panted before them.

"It's the jumping-off place, I reckon," said Crosby, "and they've brought us here to show us how small is our chance of getting away.

But," he added, turning towards the plateau again, "what are they doing now? 'Pon my soul! I believe they're going off--and leaving us."The others turned as he spoke.It was true.The dragoons were coolly galloping off the way they came, taking with them the horses the Americans had just ridden.

"I call that cool," said Crosby."It looks deuced like as if we were to be left here to graze, like cattle.""Perhaps that's their idea of a prison in this country," said Banks."There's certainly no chance of our breaking jail in that direction," he added, pointing to the desert; "and we can't follow them without horses.""And I dare say they've guarded the pass in the road lower down,"said Winslow.