hes, now overgrown with grass and
bushes, had been cut; so that when the sluices were closed, and the
confined water rose to a certain height, it found a vent in another
direction, and the original channel remained dry. The gates had been
taken out and concealed amongst the brushwood, where Paco and El Tuerto
had found them, and, by forcing them down the grooves, had stopped the
waterfall. They were now busied in removing them, and the Mochuelo and
Herrera, on approaching the edge of the rock, found the torrent once
more plashing down its accustomed bed, and the strange staircase, by
which their ascent had been accomplished, concealed by its flow.

In reply to Herrera's enquiries as to the original authors of this
curious contrivance, and the manner in which he had discovered it, the
Mochuelo informed him that the Frenchman, Roche, or El Tuerto, as his
Spanish comrades styled him, had, previously to the war, been one of a
band of outlaws, smugglers avowedly, and on occasion, as it was
affirmed, something worse, who for a considerable period had carried on
their illegal avocations in the Navarrese Pyrenees and their contiguous
ranges. Exposed to frequent pursuit, they had discovered and contrived
hiding-places in various parts of the district they infested, and that
now occupied by the guerillas was the one on the ingenuity of which they
most prided themselves. In order to keep it secret, they resorted
thither only in extreme cases, usually contriving to arrive and depart
in the nighttime, and carefully avoided making any of the peasantry
aware of its existence. The scanty population of the district, which
consisted chiefly of rock and mountain, forest and waste land, favoured
the preservation of their secret. At the commencement of the war the
gang broke up, and its members joined various guerilla corps. Roche was
for some time with the Carlists, but finding pay and plunder less
plentiful than hard duty and long marches, he deserted, and put himself
under the orders of the Mochuelo. The latter knew something of his
previous history, and, on leaving Pampeluna, had consulted him as a
person likely to possess valuable information concerning the wild
district whither they were about to proceed.

It seemed probable, from the appearance of the platform, that it had
been unvisited, certainly unfrequented, since the dissolution of the
honourable society to which El Tuerto had belonged. The grass was long
and untrodden; no wood