The cooing voices of the Indians were not far behind them. Occasionally they heard the breaking of branches and the swishing of the leaves where the pursuing savages fought their way through the jungle. It was fortunate that the vegetation was so dense that they could not be seen and thus afford easy targets for the arrows of the forest men. “It can’t be far now,” Miguel said encouragingly. The roar of the water had become so loud that he was compelled to shout to make himself heard. David was too breathless from his exertions to talk, so he nodded his head in assent. They could not hear their pursuers now, but there was no doubt about their being hot on the trail, which they would not leave until the fugitives had been overtaken. At last the two fought their way through the last living wall of green and stood on the brink of the river. They were a sorry sight, bleeding from numerous cuts and bruises, their clothing in shreds, and on the point of exhaustion. Before them lay a deep gorge through which the river, of considerable size, rushed over a bed littered with huge boulders. There was no crossing the stream; even a boat would have been short-lived in the maelstrom that hissed and boiled a hundred feet below them. They took in the situation at a glance, and it seemed as if they were in a worse dilemma than before. The Indians were approaching on one side, cutting off retreat, and the river prevented further flight in that direction. There was no time to ponder the situation. Miguel peered over the embankment. Then, beckoning to David to follow, he slid over the edge, held to it for a moment and let go. David looked down just in time to see his companion stop against a flat rock twenty feet below and in a moment he had landed by his side. Then followed a second drop into a clump of bushes; it was higher than the first but the springy boughs broke the force of the fall. The remainder of the descent was easier. There was a slant to the wall down which they slid to the rocks on the very edge of the water. A hasty survey of the situation showed that the sides of the gorge up-stream were the more precipitous; and the pathway on the margin of the seething flood was safer, so they started in that direction, clambering over the slippery boulders where a misstep meant a plunge into the water below. What they sought was a place where it would be impossible to be seen from above, and when this had been attained they stopped to rest. Ahead of them was the marvellous spectacle of a cataract dashing over a series of steplike rocks and ending in a sheer fall ten feet or more in height. The prospect was discouraging in spite of momentary safety. If they should turn downstream they would become easy marks for the Indians, who must have reached the brink of the gorge by that time; up-stream was the wall of roaring water, but toward it they went.