"Impossible to go back. The trail is full." "Then I’ll sit here till ’tis empty." "Oh, the fiend, woman! Dost not see they cannot pass for our mules? The column is waiting." "Then let the column wait and twiddle its fingers! The column can wait till it turneth to a column of waiting mummies if it see fit, but I’ll not put foot to that bridge!" Pedro stared at her helplessly. The way was blocked. Ocallo with his mule was behind them, and the narrow platform was full, the column at a standstill, its head at a safe distance from the heels of the rearmost animal. Somewhere, Matopo was storming, his voice rising above the roar of the stream, and echoing and reëchoing weirdly between the granite walls. Cristoval was hailing, and shortly began to swear. The lady tossed her head, and pulling up a spear of grass, began to chew its end. Pedro laughed with exasperation; opened his mouth, but finding no expletives to fit the situation, closed it again and grew excessively red. The soldiers in the rear began to murmur. Pedro contained himself with an effort, and began sadly:— "Well, so it must be, Señora! _Adiós_! I shall remember thee. I shall think of thee with a pang. I shall see thee ever in my darkest moments, sitting dreary amid the lonely majesty of the eternal mountains on an uncushioned windlass, a spear of grass thine only sustenance, whilst tempest and avalanche thunder about thee throughout the drift of years. _Adiós_, Señora! Thou’lt be in my dreams, a silent, graceful, but resolute form, waiting in solitude, holding the brittle remnants of a pair of reins; at thy feet a shrunken, staring, decayed cadaver of a mule, giving voiceless, desiccated testimony of thine inflexibility. _Adiós_! _Adiós_! I go. Come, thou, my steadfast and faithful steed, we obey the pointed finger of destiny. _Fata nos nolentes trahunt_!" Pedro turned away, and straining to produce a sob, fetched a hiccough, and led to the bridge. The lady, at first bewildered by his burst of gloomy eloquence, then touched by the profound melancholy with which it was delivered, melted from determination to tenderness. As he stepped upon the floor she rose, glanced about despairingly, and shouted:— "Hold, Pedro, thou dear love of a man! I follow! Wait for me, thou poor thing—and the fiend take the bridge and its makers if it serve me not across!" But at the terror of the swaying structure she faltered, and Pedro turned. "Nay, Señora!" he cried, in a voice of sad but gentle deprecation, and raising his hand, "’t is too much. I ask it not. Turn back." For answer she sat down, and in her desperation heedless of exposure of limb, began sliding down the steep incline, clutching and moaning plaintively, the feminine now wholly uppermost. At last she neared Pedro’s mule, and he called:— "Stand up, my dear, and grasp his tail." "Oh—God’s mercy!—he will kick!" she replied, in a shuddering wail.