“God be gracious to us! true enough--true enough--let us go to them then, my children.” And we again all cantered off after the excellent Don Ricardo. But before we could reach the spot, we had to make a detour, and come down upon it from the precipitous brow of the beetling cliff above, for there was no beach nor shore to the swollen river, which was here very deep and surged, rushing under the hollow bank with comparatively little noise, which was the reason why we heard the cries so distinctly. The unfortunates who were in peril, whoever they might be, seemed to comprehend our motions, for one of them held out a white handkerchief, which I immediately answered by a similar signal, when the shouting ceased, until, guided by the negroes, we reached the verge of the cliff, and looked down from the red crumbling bank on the foaming water, as it swept past beneath. It was here about thirty yards broad, divided by a rocky wedge like islet, on which grew a profusion of dark bushes and one large tree, whose topmost branches were on a level with us where we stood. This tree was divided, about twelve feet from the root, into two limbs in the fork of which sat, like a big monkey, no less a personage than Captain Transom himself, wet and dripping, with his clothes besmeared with mud, and shivering with cold. At the foot of the tree sat in rueful mood, a small antique beau of an old man in a coat which had once been blue silk, wearing breeches, the original colour of which no man could tell, and without his wig, his clear bald pate shining amidst the surrounding desolation like an ostrich’s egg. Beside these worthies stood two trembling way-worn mules with drooping heads, their long ears hanging down most disconsolately. The moment we came in sight, the skipper hailed us. “Why, I am hoarse with bawling, Don Ricardo, but here am I and el Doctor Pavo Real, in as sorry a plight as any two gentlemen need be. On attempting the ford two hours ago, blockheads as we were beg pardon, Don Pavo”--the doctor bowed, and grinned like a baboon--“we had nearly been drowned; indeed, we should have been drowned entirely, had we not brought up on this island of Barataria here.--But how is the young lady? tell me that,” said the excellent-hearted fellow, even in the midst of his own danger. “Mind Yourself, my beautiful child,” cried Bang. “How are we to get you on terra firma?” “Poo--in the easiest way possible,” rejoined he, with true seamanlike self-possession. “I see you have ropes--Tom Cringle, heave me the end of the line which Don Ricardo carries, will you?” “No, no--I can do that myself,” said Don Ricardo, and with a swing he hove the leathern noose at the skipper, and whipped it over his neck in a twinkling. The Scotch Spaniard, I saw, was pluming himself on his skill, but Transom was up to him, for in an instant he dropped out of it, while in slipping through he let it fall over a broken limb of the tree.