"If you are a true mountaineer," added he, "you will be able to follow me; but attempt it not if you feel the least fear; for I have seldom seen a place more likely to break the neck of any but a good cragsman." "Go on," replied I, "I have no fear;" and, indeed, I had become so reckless about life, that had it been the jaws of hell, I would have plunged in. And yet it appeared I was even then in the act of flying from death. Man is so made up of inconsistencies, that this would not have been extraordinary, granting it to have been the case--but it was not so. I was not flying from death, but from ignominy and shame, and the reproachful eyes of those I loved. Garcias led the way; and certainly never did a more hazardous and precarious path receive the steps of two human beings. Its course lay down the very face of the precipice over which the stream fell, and the only tenable steps that it afforded were formed by the broken faces of the schistus rock, without one bough of shrub or tree to offer a hold for the hands. The river at the same time kept roaring in our ears, within a yard of our course; and every now and then, where it took a more furious bound than ordinary, it dashed its spray in our faces, and over our path, confusing the sight, whose range was already circumscribed by the darkness, and rendering the rock so slippy that nothing but the talons of an eagle would have fastened steadily upon it. At length we came to a spot of smooth turf, with still the same degree of perpendicular declination; and to keep one's feet became now almost impossible; so that nothing seemed left but to lie down and slip from the top to the bottom. It was a dangerous experiment, for the descent might probably have terminated in a precipice which would have been difficult to avoid; but I little cared: and, with the usual success of boldness, I lighted on a small round plot of turf, crowning another turn of the ravine. A man anxious for life would, most probably, have avoided the course of the stream, slipped past the spot on which I found a safe resting place, and been dashed over the precipice which lay scarce two yards from me. In a moment Garcias was by my side, and asked, with some concern lest his place of retreat had been discovered, whether I had ever visited that spot before, for I seemed to know it, he said, as well as he did himself. Having assured him I never had, and that my fortunate descent was entirely accidental, he laid his hand on my arm, as if to stay me from any farther trial of the kind. "You have escaped strangely," said he: "but never make the same experiment again, unless you are something more than merely careless about life. We are now close upon my men," he added, "and we must give them notice of our approach or we may risk a shot;" and he stooped over the edge of the cliff looking down into the ravine.