And, in truth, as we raised the body of Fray Antonio over the edge of the cliff it seemed as though this dread were realized; for a great bloody gash was upon his temple, and his limbs were limp and lifeless, and his face was deathly pale. At sight of which there came into my heart a bursting pain, as though some one had stabbed me there; and there were tears in Young's eyes; and Rayburn gave vent to his sorrow in a great curse that was half a groan. As for Pablo, whom no danger could daunt, and who would bear without flinching any hurt of his own, this dreadful sight so moved him that he fainted dead away.
Yet even in the moment that such deep sorrow seemed to be settling down upon us, Fray Antonio slightly moved his lips, and there came forth from them a low faint sigh--whereupon Young jumped up with a shout and relieved his mind by administering to Pablo a hearty kick, which he accompanied with the remark: "You infernal fool of a Greaser Indian, what do you mean by swoundin'? He ain't dead at all!"
As tenderly as I could for the trembling of my hands, I washed away the blood from about the cut and bathed Fray Antonio's pale face, while Rayburn gave him a sup of whiskey from his flask. And then, presently, his eyes opened and energy came into his body once more. In a little while he was on his feet again, and as well as ever, save for the smarting of his cut, and in his head a dizziness and a dull throbbing pain. Just what had happened he could not tell. He knew that he had struck against the rock with his feet, as he had planned to do; but he must have swung around, when the force of the impact had been thus partly broken, and struck his head against some sharp projection, and so have been cut and stunned. But it made no great difference how his hurt had come to him, since it had not proved to be a deadly one; therefore we forbore to question him further concerning it, and sought by quiet talk, that led softly into silence, to take his thoughts away from the peril that he had been in. Indeed, we all were glad to rest quietly where we were for the night, for our bodies were tired and our nerves were racked and strained.
We should have been most thankful for a big potful of coffee, but there was no wood with which we could make a fire. The best that we could do, and there was not much comfort in it, was to chew some coffee grains after we had made a supper upon one of our few remaining tins of meat; and then we rolled ourselves in our blankets and lay down upon the bare rock. And I must say that if anybody had asked me at that moment if archæology was a study that paid for the trouble that it cost, I should have said most unhesitatingly that it was not.
