Pedro produced his crucifix, and began to mutter his morning orisons, mingling with them sundry invectives against the ladrones, and wishes for a cup of aquardiente to stimulate him to fresh exertion. The fire of the besiegers had now ceased, and they contented themselves with watching the spot as they sat among the rocks smoking paper cigars, and fixing new flints to their pieces; while coarse jokes were mingled with the growls and curses of three or four that lay bleeding under the shelter of a large block of granite rock, but untended and uncared for by their comrades, who had half-stripped three others of their dead, now tossed under the willow trees to be out of view,—the features of the slain being too unpleasant an object for them to contemplate. "The sun has risen," said Ronald, as its bright beams darted through openings in the vines. "I will reconnoitre round about, and perhaps I may discover some sign of our troops, if I can see the road which leads to Merida." He received no answer. The mumble-jumble of Pedro’s paternoster, and a prolonged snore from Iverach, informed him that his companions in peril were not inclined for conversation. Laying aside his bonnet, he crept close to the mouth of the cave, and putting back the foliage softly, cast a careful and keen glance around him. Their besiegers on the opposite bank of the stream were still stationed as I have described them, and appeared evidently determined to revenge the fall of their comrades by starving their slayers into a capitulation. Behind them, and to the right rose the umbrageous foliage of the cork wood, intermingled with lofty chesnuts, stretching away in long vistas until lost in gloom and obscurity. On the left the trees were more scattered, and between the trunks he beheld the wide plain extending away in the direction of Merida, its broad and level extent bounded by a blue undulating ridge of far-off mountains, the line of which lay low down in the distance, and formed the boundary of the horizon. The warm lustre of the morning sun was shed joyously on the wide expanse, calling into life a thousand birds and insects, and causing the wild flowers to raise their dewy heads, and shake the moisture from their opening petals. But throughout all the wide prospect which the lofty situation of their retreat enabled him to command, not one human being appeared,—no succour was in sight. O how he longed to behold the glitter of arms, the flash of burnished steel, through the dusty cloud which announces afar off the march of armed men! And his heart beat with redoubled velocity while he gazed upon the band of contemptible yet dreaded ruffians, whom they had kept at bay the live-long night.