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Outside the mine he sat himself down to consider what could be done, but no thought came, for it was impossible to use the strength of the horses in that narrow place. Then he sprang up and looked round him in despair. Close to him was a little ravine hollowed by water, and on its very edge grew a small mimosa thorn of which the long roots had been washed almost bare by a flood. He saw it, and an inspiration entered into him. With the help of a lever he might be able to do a feat to which his unaided strength was not equal.

Springing at the little tree, that being of so tough a wood was the best possible for his purpose, he tore it from such root-hold as remained to it. A few strokes with his heavy hunting-knife trimmed off the branches and fibres, and soon he was creeping carefully up the tunnel, dragging the trunk after him. When he had gone some twenty paces he heard another fragment of the roof fall, and, so he said in his story, was minded to fly.

He had but just escaped from a horrible end, the end that generations ago overtook the poor Aztec, and it was awful to brave it again. He knew that his chances of being able to rescue me were few indeed, whereas those that he would perish miserably in the attempt were many. Then he remembered what my sufferings must be if I still lived, and how his own conscience would reproach him in the after years, should he leave me to my fate, and he went on.