The farther the pirate advanced, the more perceptible the air became, which led him to conclude he was approaching an entrance of some kind. He had been walking nearly twenty minutes, when a puff of wind came sharply in his nice and made the flame of his torch flicker. "Hum!" he muttered, "here is a place of exit--let us be prudent and put out our lights, we know not whom we may meet with outside." He crushed the light of his torch beneath his feet, and remained a few instants motionless, to allow his eyes to become accustomed to the darkness. He was a prudent man, and thoroughly acquainted with his trade of a bandit, was this captain. If the plan he had formed for the attack of the camp had failed, it had required for that a concurrence of fortuitous circumstances impossible to have been foreseen by anybody. Therefore, after the first moment of ill-humour caused by the check he had received, he had bravely taken his part; resolving, _in petto_, to take his revenge as soon as an opportunity should present itself. Besides, it seemed as if Fortune was willing to smile on him afresh, by offering him, just at the moment when he had the greatest want of it, a refuge not likely to be discovered. It was therefore with an almost unspeakable joy and hope that he waited till his eyes should be accustomed to the darkness, to permit him to distinguish objects and know if he were really going to find a place of exit, which would render him master of an almost impregnable position. His expectations were not disappointed. As soon as the dazzling effect of the blaze of the torch was got rid of, he perceived, at a considerable distance before him, a feeble light. He walked resolutely forward, and at the end of a few minutes came to the so much desired outlet. Decidedly fortune was once more propitious to him! The outlet of the grotto opened upon the banks of a little river, the water of which came murmuring close to the mouth of the cavern, so that the bandits might, by swimming or constructing a raft, go in and out without leaving any traces, and thus defeat all researches. The captain was too well acquainted with the prairies of the West, in which he had for nearly ten years exercised his honourable and lucrative profession, not to be able to know at once where he was on looking around him. He perceived that this river flowed at some distance from the camp of the Mexicans, from which its numberless meanderings tended still more to remove it. He breathed a sigh of satisfaction when he had well examined the environs, no longer fearing discovery and thenceforward at ease regarding his position. He lit his torch again, and retraced his steps. His companions, with the exception of one who watched the prisoners, were fast asleep. The captain aroused them. "Come, be alive! be alive!" he said; "this is not the time for sleeping; we have something else to do."