Nearly twenty men were pouring forth rhapsodies like the above, and the tower became filled with sounds of lamentation, shrieks, and cries,—groans, prayers, and the wildest blasphemy mingled with the most pious ejaculations; but it was a just retribution which had fallen upon these wicked men.
Ronald’s heart beat lightly as he crossed the terrible chasm, where so many unfortunates had found a tomb. He had been a captive—on the very verge of death, and now he was free, and "himself again."
The bright moon was shining aloft like a globe of silver, and the dewy sides of the hills, the rivulets which trickled from the rocks, the sleepy stream at the bottom of the valley, and every violet-cup and blade of grass were gleaming in its radiant light.
At a little distance from the chasm were a party of Alvaro’s cavalry, escorting the horses of those who were engaged in the tower, and their tall lance-heads, bright helmets and cuirasses, were flashing and glittering in the moonlight. Their caparisoned war-horses were sleek-skinned and long-tailed Andalusians, and were cropping the grass with their bridles loose.
"Pedro is a rough dog," said the cavalier, looking complacently back. "He is stringing a fair chaplet for the devil in the merry moonlight. In ten minutes he will have the _ladrones_ all dangling over the battlement. _Santos!_ ’tis not work for soldiers’ hands; but the dogs deserve not to die by military weapons, for they are as arrant cowards as ever blanched before the eye of a brave man. Look back, just now, Don Ronald!"
Ronald turned round, and beheld with disgust the Spanish soldiers forcing the pinioned banditti over the walls, where they hung by the neck, dangling and writhing in couples. Although he was at some distance from the tower, he could distinctly perceive their convulsions, and heard their heels rattling against the walls, from the ruinous battlement of which the stones were tumbling every instant into the chasm with a thundering sound, which caused the horses of the lancers to snort and rear. It was a ghastly sight.
"Now, then, ho for Maya! I believe we shall find our way across the mountains without the aid of Lazaro, now the bright moon is shining with such splendour," was the exclamation of Alvaro as they mounted and set forth. Stuart rode beside him on the horse of an orderly, and four Spanish lancers followed as an escort. They descended towards the valley by the steep and perilous path-way, which was so narrow as to admit but one horseman at a time, and often overhung the abyss, passing so close to the edge of the beetling craigs, that the eye scarcely dared to scan the depth below. It was well for the riders that the horses they rode had been accustomed to stand fire, otherwise some lives might have been lost as they descended the rocks. Before they were half-way down, a sudden glare shot across the sky from the mountains above them. A terrific shock and explosion followed, and the rock of the Torre de los Frayles was seen enveloped in a cloud of black smoke, which, after curling upwards, floated away through the clear blue sky.