erintended the
operations.

"I shall keep _you_ to the last, Monsieur," said the priest, addressing
Raoul; "you will have the pleasure of bringing up the rear in your
passage through purgatory. Ha! ha! ha! Won't he, Lopez?"

"Yes, Captain."

"Maybe some of you would like a priest, gentlemen." This Jarauta
uttered with an ironical grin that was revolting to behold. "If you
would," he continued, "say so. I sometimes officiate in that capacity
myself. Don't I, Lopez?"

"Yes, Captain."

A diabolical laugh burst from the Jarochos, who had dismounted, and were
standing out upon the cliff, the better to witness the spectacle of our
hanging.

"Well, Lopez, does any of them say `yes'?"

"No, Captain."

"Ask the Irishman there; ask him--he ought to be a good Catholic."

The question was put to Chane, in mockery, of course, for it was
impossible for him to answer it; and yet he _did_ answer it, for his
look spoke a curse as plainly as if it had been uttered through a
trumpet. The Jarochos did not heed that, but only laughed the louder.

"Well, Lopez, what says Saint Patrick? `Yes' or `no'?"

"`No', Captain."

And a fresh peal of ruffian laughter rang out.

The rope was now placed around my neck in a running noose. The other
end had been passed over the tree, and lay coiled near the edge of the
cliff. Lopez held it in his hand a short distance above the coil, in
order to direct its movements.

"All ready there, Lopez?" cried the leader.

"Yes, Captain."

"Swing off the captain, then--no, not yet; let him look at the floor on
which he is going to dance; that is but fair."

I had been drawn forward until my feet projected over the edge of the
precipice, and close to the root of the tree. I was now forced into a
sitting posture, so that I might look below, my limbs hanging over.
Strange to say, I could not resist doing exactly what my tormentor
wished. Under other circumstances the sight would have been to me
appalling; but my nerves were strung by the protracted agony I had been
forced to endure.

The precipice on whose verge I sat formed a side of one of those yawning
gulfs common in Spanish America, and known by the name _barrancas_. It
seemed as if a mountain had been scooped out and carried away. Not two
hundred yards horizontally distant was the twin jaw of the chasm, like a
black burnt wall; yet the torrent that roared and foamed between them
was full six hundred feet below my position! I