"Forward, my lads," he shouted in triumph, as he galloped to the front. Amid an increased chorus of strange-sounding shrieks and cries, the party, shouting and laughing themselves almost as loudly as their attendants, set forward. "Whoo! whoo!" sung out all the assembled natives in chorus, when the muleteers, catching hold of the tails of their respective animals with their left hands, began to urge them on by digging into their flanks the points of the short goads held in their right hands. "Arra burra! cara! cara cavache! caval!" screamed out the natives, and on went the steeds, kicking and clattering through the pebble-paved streets, well nigh sending some of their less experienced riders over their heads, and dispersing to the right and left every one they encountered. "I say, we won't be after having these fellows at our heels all the way," exclaimed Adair. "Of course not," said Jack; "it would be a horrid bore." "Be off with ye, now," cried Adair, to the natives; Jack and the rest giving similar orders; but the muleteers, in the first place, did not understand what they said, and, in the second, knew better than to let go, as without the usual tail-pulling and goading, the beasts would not have budged a foot. "We shall be quit of yer, ye spalpeens, when we get to the lull," cried Adair, at which the swarthy natives grinned, and would have grinned more had they comprehended his remark. Quickly passing through the town, up the steep sides of the mountain, they clattered between high stone walls, crowned by vines, geraniums, and numberless flowering plants, while orange groves were seen here and there through various openings, with pretty quintas nestling amid them; or when they turned their heads glimpses were caught of the town and bay, and the blue ocean. They had not gone far when they met an Englishman on horse-back, who, pulling up, introduced himself as the merchant about to ship the admiral's wine, and invited them to stop at his quinta, on their way down from the Corral. "With all the pleasure in life," answered Adair; "and will you have the kindness, sir, to tell these noisy fellows, pulling at our horses' tails, that we can dispense with their company?" "It would be far from a kindness if I did, for you would find that your beasts would not move ahead without them," said the merchant, laughing, and directing the arrieros to stop at his house on their return, he bade the merry party good morning. Up and up they went, till Gerald declared that they should reach the moon if they continued on much longer. At length they found themselves on the brink of an enormous chasm, some thousand feet in depth, upwards of two miles in length, and half-a-mile in width, while before them a precipitous wall of rocks towered up towards the blue heavens, broken into numberless craggy pinnacles, amid which the clouds careered rapidly, although far below they lay in thin strata, unmoved by a breeze.