CHAPTER XIII.

THE VENTANA.

Tom Lambourne's face wore somewhat of a blanched hue, through which the stripes of his tattooing seemed blacker than ever. A severe cut on his forehead, from which the blood was oozing, did not add to his personal appearance. He scarcely knew a word of Spanish, but seemed instinctively aware that we had fallen into hands nearly as dangerous as his former acquaintances the Mussolongos, for he said,--

"Master Rodney, I fear we have run our last knot off the log-line, and our sand-glass won't run again, unless heaven gives the order _to turn_. Yet, if I could but get one of these muskets, to have a shot at the rascally cargo-puddlers before it's all over with us, I would be content. As it is, I am all over blood from clew to ear-ring, and they have wellnigh choked me by shaking a quid down my throat."

"Hush, Tom," said I, for I was listening to a discussion which took place among the Spaniards.

"Do you understand their lingo?"

"A little."

"What are they saying?" he asked, with growing interest.

"I will tell you immediately."

But as they all spoke at once in the sonorous Spanish of the Catalonian coast, mingled with obscure slang and nautical phrases, some time elapsed before I could understand them. Meanwhile, how terrible were the thoughts that filled my mind.

If these fellows murdered and cast us into that awful chasm, the deed would never be known; until the day of doom, our fate and our remains could no more be traced than the smoke that melts into the sky. Even if we escaped unhurt, but were detained so long that the brig sailed without us, what would be our condition, penniless, forlorn, and unknown, in that foreign island? But this was a minor evil.

Then I burned to revenge the lawless treatment to which we were subjected, and the blows and bruises their cowardly hands had dealt so freely.

"Companeros," I heard one say, "one of these fellows is tattooed, and would sell very well to the South American planters with the rest that will soon be under hatches. He is worth keeping, if he cannot ransom himself; as for the _other_----"

"_El muchaco!_" (the boy) said they, glancing at me.

"Si--el page de escoba--if he is allowed to return, a complaint may find its way to the Senor Alcalde, whose alguazils may come and borrow our topsails and anchor for a time; whereas, if we heave him where the others went yesterday----"

"Where?"

"Into the ventana, hombre!" was the fierce response; "and then no more will be heard of the affair."

My blood grew cold at these words, and I scarcely knew what followed, till the first man who spoke came forward and addressed us.

"Inglesos," said he, "we have decided that one of you, after swearing not to reveal our present hiding-place, shall return within four hours, bearing a fitting ransom for both, else, so surely as the clock strikes, he who is left behind goes into the ventana of the mountain, where never did the longest deep-sea line find a bottom--not that I suppose any man was ever ass enough to try. Santos! do you hear?" he added, striking his musket-butt sharply on the rocks, when perceiving that Tom was ignorant of all he said, and that I was stupefied by it.

"Si, senor," said I, and translated it to Tom Lambourne, who twirled his tarry hat on his fore-finger, stuck his quid in his cheek, slapped his thigh vigorously, and gave other nautical manifestations of extreme surprise and discomposure.

"Ransom, Master Rodney?" he reiterated; "in the name of old Davy, who would ransom a poor Jack like me?"

"The whole crew would table their month's wages on the capstan head--aye, in a moment, Tom," I replied with confidence.

"I'm sure they would, and the Captain and Master Hislop, too, for the matter o' that, rather than poor shipmates should come to harm; but----"

"As for _me_," said I, with growing confidence, "I am, as you said, senores, only the page de escoba."

"Bah!" said the Spaniard, grinning, and showing a row of sharp white teeth, under a dirty and sable moustache; "though I said so, I knew better. A shipboy seldom has a watch like _this_," he added, displaying my gold repeater. "Now, we shall keep _you_; and if this seaman--after he has first sworn that he will not betray us--does not return to us here with five hundred dollars within two hours after sunset, _par el_"--(here he made a dreadful vow in Spanish), "we will toss you like a dead dog into the ventana of the mountain. Look down, and see what a journey is before you," he added, with a diabolical smile, as he dragged me to the beetling edge of the chasm, and forced me to look into it.

Our eyes had now become so accustomed to the light of the gallery or grotto, that the rays of sunshine falling through the fissure above us were sufficient to disclose a portion of the vast profundity on the verge of which we stood.

From the earth's womb, far, far down below, there came upward a choking steam, with a hollow buzzing sound, which deepened at times to a rumble.

This steam or mist rose and fell on the currents of air; sometimes it sank so low that nothing but a black and dreary void met the eye, which ached in attempting to pierce it. Anon the steam would rise in spiral curls from that gloomy bed below, where doubtless the fires of the now almost extinct volcano seethe their embers in the waves of the ocean.

The words "have mercy," were on my lips, but I could not utter them; nor would they have availed me. Ignorant of what the ruffian said, and believing he was about to thrust me in, poor Tom Lambourne, in the fulness of his heart, uttered a howl of dismay; and at that moment the sentinel, whom the gang had left at the entrance to their lurking-place, came hurriedly in, with alarm expressed in his glittering eyes, and a finger placed, as a warning, on his hairy lip.

"Para! Paz! Silenzio!" (hold--peace--silence), he exclaimed, and added that four officers from the garrison of Santa Cruz had dismounted in the ravine, unbitted their horses, and had seated themselves under a tree to smoke.

This information was received by the band with oaths and mutterings of impatience; and by us with mingled emotions of hope and agony--hope that they might be the means of our escape or rescue; and agony to know that such means were so near, and yet could avail us nothing; for on the slightest sound being made by either of us, there were the Albacete knives of our captors on one hand, and the ventana--that awful ventana--on the other, to insure forever the silence and oblivion of the grave.

Not the least of my sufferings was from the cord which secured my wrists. Already the skin was swollen, cut, and bleeding in consequence of the tightness with which these wretches had bound me.