Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 1.djvu/211

 Rh "Kill! kill!" he shrieked out, stumbling over the slippery rocks.

Suddenly he heard a hoarse sound in the depths beneath his feet. He stopped, knowing that it was the roaring of a torrent.

It was the little river Ixtolucca, which rushed on five hundred feet below him. Some paces off, over the torrent, was thrown a bridge formed of ropes. It was secured on both sides by some piles driven into the rock. The bridge oscillated in the wind like a thread extended in space.

Clinging to the ropes, Martinez made his way across the bridge, and by a great effort he reached the opposite bank.

There, a shadow rose before him.

Martinez retreated, without saying a word, towards the bank he had just left.

There, another human form appeared.

Martinez fell upon his knees in the middle of the bridge, his hands clasped in despair.

"Martinez, I am Pablo!" said a voice.

"Martinez, I am Jacopo!" said another voice.

"You are a traitor! You shall die!"

"You are a murderer! You shall die!"

Two loud blows were heard, the piles which secured the ropes at the extremity of the bridge fell beneath the ax. A horrible shriek rent the air, and Martinez, his hands extended, was precipitated into the abyss.

A league higher up, the midshipman and the boatswain rejoined each other, after having passed by a ford the river Ixtolucca.

"I have avenged Don Orteva!" said Jacopo.

"And I," replied Pablo, "have avenged Spain!"

It was thus that the navy of the Mexican Confederation had its origin. The two Spanish ships, delivered up by the traitors, were taken possession of by the new Republic, and became the nucleus of that small fleet which fought unsuccessfully for Texas and California, against the fleet of the United States of America.