hen a man was about half across, an' we may as well make th' thing
sure." And then, as the chain still held firm under the double strain,
he added, "Well, here goes;" and, so speaking, took a running start and
went swinging out over the abyss.

My heart was in my mouth as he leaped forth and shot out from and far
below us; but in a moment he rose along the curve that he was traversing
and was safely landed on the other side. "It's a boss invention.
Workin' it is just as easy as rollin' off a log," he called across to
us; and to show how easily the passage was made, he instantly swung
himself back again.

Pablo had manifested signs of strong uneasiness while this talk and
action were in progress, and in a very anxious tone he now inquired:
"But how will it be with the Wise One, senor?"

"Why, gettin' _him_ across will be as easy as open an' shut," Young
answered, speaking in English to Rayburn and to me. "We'll just rig him
in th' rope slings again, an' make him fast to th' chain, an' give him a
good boost to start him, and over he'll go before he fairly knows he's
started."

But when we came to apply this brisk statement of the case practically,
we found it by no means easy of execution. El Sabio grew restive as we
arranged the slings of rope about his body, evidently remembering,
fearfully, the strange journey that he had made in the air when we had
rigged him in a like manner in order to trice him up to where the stair
began; and he grew yet more restive as we fastened the rope slings to
the end of the chain. Rayburn had crossed to the other side--passing the
chain back by weighting it with a rock--and stood ready to receive El
Sabio when he was swung across. But partly owing to a want of skill in
our management of him, yet more to his own unruliness--for just as we
started him, with a strong push, he clapped down his fore-feet upon the
edge of the cliff and so checked his swing outward--he did not swing
within reach of Rayburn's hands. And so he came back towards us again,
and then out once more towards Rayburn; and so swung slowly and yet more
slowly until at last he hung motionless over the very middle of the
gulf, with nothing between him and the rocks below but a thousand feet
of air. And then El Sabio began to kick with a vigor that set to
rattling every link in the chain!

Pablo was cast by this mischance into a veritable frenzy of fright; and
we were most seriously frightened also--not only because the de