The order was obeyed, and, turning to the left, the guerillas quitted the defile and entered the smaller of the two valleys connected by it. Guided by the Tuerto, they presently approached a projecting hill, jutting out into the valley like some huge buttress placed there to support the mountain wall. It was of small elevation, but its sides were too perpendicular to be climbed, although that circumstance was partially concealed by the trees growing at its base. Its summit also was covered with trees, and its rocky flanks were clothed with ivy. The guerillas turned into a wood extending to some distance along the foot of the mountain, and made their way with some difficulty through the closely planted trunks and thick brushwood. Presently the sound of falling water was audible, increasing in loudness as they proceeded, until its cause became visible in a cascade that splashed down the mountain side. A rocky pool received the foaming element, and fed a pellucid stream that soon disappeared amongst the trees, on its way to irrigate and fertilize the neighbouring fields. The water fell from the least elevated part of the mountain buttress above described, a height of seventy or eighty feet. "This is the place," said El Tuerto to the Mochuelo. The latter nodded, and again ordering a halt, passed the word for the men to sit down upon the grass and observe the strictest silence. Divesting themselves of their belts and muskets, El Tuerto and Paco now approached a lofty tree growing at a short distance from the cascade, and whose upper boughs reached to the top of the precipice, and to the astonishment of Herrera and Torres, and indeed of all who were sufficiently near to distinguish their movements, began to climb its knotty and uneven trunk. In obedience, however, to the order for silence, no one asked a question of the Mochuelo, who alone seemed aware of the meaning of this manoeuvre. Soon the two climbers reached the uppermost limits of the gigantic tree, and creeping cautiously along one of them, landed safely at the top of the precipice. For an instant they were visible like dark shadows against the starry sky, and then they disappeared amongst the trees.