Our villa was about four miles and a half from the hill on which Monsieur José and his friends had pitched their habitation, and it was uphill all the way, and a very rough road. The path--it was a mere mountain track--was covered with loose stones, and in many places was but a few feet wide. Below sloped, with the abruptness of a precipice, the green hillside, dotted with olive-trees and aloe shrubs, and above the vegetation grew more and more stunted, and great masses of rock jutted out and lay about the barren brown summit. I was running towards the sea, and the soft invigorating breeze which blew steadily in my teeth seemed to lend me an added vigour, for when I caught my father up, close to our destination, I was as fresh as at the start. Side by side we reached the chasm-like gorge which separated the range of hills which we had been traversing from the solitary one behind which was the brigands' dwelling-place. Here we halted, and my father, dismounting, put two of his fingers in his mouth and whistled a peculiar screech-like whistle, which I had often vainly tried to imitate. At first there was no answer, save the echoes which came mockingly back again and again. Again he gave the signal, and this time one of the band made a cautious appearance from behind a knoll of trees, and, seeing who we were, came forward and threw a rough bridge, formed from the trunk of a tree, across the chasm. We were on the other side in a moment, and I hurried up the steep hillside, whilst my father remained behind to exchange a few sentences with the man whose vile patois I could not pretend to understand. He caught me up at the summit, and, without stopping, ran down the green footpath, calling out to me-- "Quick, Hugh, we shall only be just in time. They are going to hang him!"