oming from the sea, encountered the
gigantic rampart of rock and scaled the peaks as if assaulting them.

The road, hewn out of the rough declivity, meandered through gardens
wild with African exuberance. The pear trees extended, like green
fences, their serried rows of prickle-laden leaves; the century-plants
opened like a profusion of bayonets, blackish or salmon-red in color;
the old agaves shot their stalks into the air straight as masts, which
were topped by extended branches that gave them the appearance of
telegraph poles. In the midst of this wild vegetation arose the lonely
summer residence of the governor. Beyond was solitude, silence,
interrupted only by the roar of the sea as it disappeared into invisible
caves.

Soon the two lovers noticed, at a great distance, signs of motion amidst
the vegetation of the slope. The stones rolled down as if some one were
pushing them under his heel; the wild plants bent under an impulse of
flight, and shrill sounds, as if coming from a child being maltreated,
rent the air. Aguirre, concentrating his attention, thought he saw some
gray forms jumping amid the dark verdure.

"Those are the monkeys of the Rock," said Luna calmly, as she had seen
them many times.

At the end of the path was the famous Cave of the Monkeys. Now Aguirre
could see them plainly, and they looked like agile, shaggy-haired
bundles jumping from rock to rock, sending the loose pebbles rolling
from under their hands and feet and showing, as they fled, the inflamed
protuberances under their stiff tails.

Before coming up to the Cave of the Monkeys the two lovers paused. The
end of the road was in sight a little further along abruptly cut off by
a precipitous projection of the rock. At the other side, invisible, was
the bay of the Catalanes with its town of fisherfolk,--the only
dependency of Gibraltar. The cliff, in this solitude, acquired a savage
grandeur. Human beings were as nothing; natural forces here had free
range, with all their impetuous majesty. From the road could be seen the
sea far, far below. The boats, diminished by the distance, seemed like
black insects with antennae of smoke, or white butterflies with their
wings spread. The waves seemed only light curls on the immense blue
plain.

Aguirre wished to go down and contemplate at closer range the gigantic
wall which the sea beat against. A rough, rocky path led, in a straight
line, to an entrance hewn out of the stone, backed by a ruin