# Works of Jules Verne/The Pearl of Lima/Chapter 10

CHAPTER X
UNITED IN DEATH
"Off," said Martin Paz, "let us be off!"
And without saying a word, the marquis quickly followed the Indian's lead. His daughter! Yes, at all hazards he must find his daughter.
Mules were brought without delay, and the two men mounted. They had buckled on large gaiters below their knees, and put on broad-brimmed straw hats to shade their heads; they carried pistols in their holsters, and their rifles were slung to their sides. Martin had fastened his lasso around him, attaching one end to the harness of his mule.
Well enough did he know every plain and every pass of that mountain-chain, and had no doubt as to the district ​into which Sambo would attempt to convey the maiden; his betrothed he longed to call her; but did he dare thus to think of Don Vegal's daughter?
One thought, one aim, occupied alike the Indian and the Spaniard, as they penetrated the gorges of the Cordilleras, darkened by the plantations of pines and cocoa-trees. They had left behind the cedars, the cotton-trees, and the aloes ; they had passed beyond the fields planted with luzerne and maize. To traverse the mountains at this season was a perilous undertaking. The melting of the snow beneath the rays of the summer sun had swollen the streams to cataracts, and continually immense masses came rolling down from the peaks above into the chasms below.
But neither by day nor night did the father and the lover permit themselves to rest. They had reached the point, the very highest in the chain, and, worn out with fatigue, seemed ready to fall into that condition of despair which deprives men of all power to act. It required almost a superhuman effort to go on; but turning to the eastern declivity of the mountain-range, they fell upon traces of the fugitives, and with rekindled energy began the descent.
Reaching the almost boundless virgin forests that cover the regions between Brazil and Peru, they made their way through woods that might have proved inextricable had not the practiced sagacity of Martin stood them in good stead. Nothing escaped his observation ; and the ashes of an extinguished fire, some vestiges of footsteps, some twigs broken off from the branches, and the character of certain fragments in the path all attracted his experienced eye.
Don Vegal feared that his ill-fated daughter had been conveyed on foot over the crags and through the thickets, but the Indian pointed out to him some indications in the stony ground which were undoubtedly the impressions of an animal's feet ; and, above all, the branches had been broken back in the same direction, and that at a height which could only be reached by a person that was mounted. The marquis too gladly yielded his conviction, and rejoiced to think that for Martin Paz there was no obstacle insurmountable, and no peril that he could not overcome.
At length one evening, postively worn out by fatigue, they made a halt. They had just come to the banks of a river. It was the upper stream of the Madeira, which ​the Indian knew perfectly well. Enormous mangroves overhung the water and connected themselves with the trees on the farther bank by creepers hanging in fanciful festoons.
The question at once arose about the fugitives. Had they gone up the stream, or followed it farther down? or had they contrived by any means to go straight across? It was all important to decide, and Martin took unbounded pains to follow up some footprints for a distance along the rocks till he came to a glade which was somewhat less dense than the surrounding woods. There he observed such indentations in the soil, as left him no doubt that a group of people had crossed the river at that very spot.
"To-morrow," he said, "perhaps our journey may be over."
"Nay, let us go on now," said the marquis.
"We must cross the river," replied Martin.
"Well, why not swim across at once?"
And without delay they proceeded to undress, and tying up their clothes in a bundle, that Martin proposed to carry over on his head, they made their way into the stream as noiselessly as possible, that they might not disturb any of the alligators that are abundant in all the rivers both of Peru and Brazil.
On arriving safely at the farther bank Martin Paz made it his first care to search for the track which the Indians must have made, but after a long search amidst the fallen leaves, and along the pebbly shore, he was able to discover nothing. Remembering, however, that the strength of the current had very probably made them drift away from a straight course, they reascended the bank for a considerable distance, when they came upon footprints so decided that they could not be mistaken.
It was manifestly the place where Sambo had effected his passage over the Madeira with his troop, which had been largely increased on its way. The truth was that the Indians of the mountains and the plains, who had been impatiently expecting the success of their insurrection, now learned that it had miscarried through treachery; burning with rage, and finding that there was a victim on whom to vent their wrath, they had joined themselves to the old Indian's retinue.
The young girl had little consciousness of what was ​going on around her. She went forwards because there were hands that urged her forwards.. Had they left her in the middle of the wilderness she would not have stirred a step to escape death. The memory of the young Indian would now and then flit across her mind, yet she was little other-wise than an inanimate burden upon the neck of the mule that carried her. Beyond the river, when two of the men dragged her along on foot, she left a trace of blood, marking every spot on which she trod.
It did not occur to Sambo, and therefore gave him no uneasiness, that the dotted crimson streak was an index to point out the way they went. He was approaching the limit of his flight, and soon the rushing cataracts of the river were heard with their deafening roar.
The party halted at an insignificant village, comprising about a hundred huts, made of canes and clay. As they entered, a multitude of women and children greeted them with boisterous acclamations; but all their delight was changed to rage as soon as they heard of the supposed treachery of Martin Paz.
Without quailing in any way before her enemies, Sarah surveyed them with a languid gaze. Though they insulted her with the vilest gestures, and assailed her ears with obloquy and savage threats, she was passive and unmoved.
"Where is my husband?" demanded one of the angry crones; "he has been killed through you."
"My brother too," added another, "he has not come back again; my brother has lost his life for you!"
Then the general chorus rose aloud, "Die! you shall die! and your flesh shall be given piecemeal to us all!"
And as they shouted, they brandished their knives aloft, waved torches of burning fire, took up stones of prodigious weight, and heaped repeated menaces on her head.
"Stop!" cried Sambo, "let us hear the judgment of the chiefs!"
In obedience to his order they stayed their demonstrations of revenge, and contented themselves with casting angry glances at the girl, who had sunk down for rest, bespattered as she was with blood, upon the stony margin of the stream.
Just below the village, the Rio Madeira, after being pent up between narrow confines, made its escape in a roaring cataract, which precipitated itself in a mighty volume to a ​depth of more than a hundred feet. The sentence passed on Sarah was that she should be cast into the flood immediately above the point from which the rapid made its start. At the first dawn of morning she was to be tied to a canoe of bark, and left to the mercy of the current of the Madeira.
That the execution of the sentence was deferred till the morrow, was not for the purpose of giving respite to the condemned victim, but only that she might be reserved for a night of terror and alarm.
The publication of the verdict was a signal for universal joy, and a frantic outburst of delight spread all around.
The night was spent in the wildest orgies. The Indians became intoxicated with their draughts of burning brandy; they danced in derisive revelry around the passive girl; they rushed about with disheveled hair, and scoured the wilderness around, waving aloft great flaming pine-branches. Thus they continued till the early twilight of the morning; and thus, with yet frantic frenzy, they saluted the first rays of the rising sun.
The fatal hour arrived, and no sooner was the girl liberated from the stake to which she had been secured, than a hundred arms were voluntarily outstretched to bear her to the scene of punishment. The name of Martin Paz escaped her lips, and the outcry of hatred and revenge waxed louder than before. In order to reach the highest level of the stream, they had to clamber by the roughest paths up the rocks that overhung the bed of the river, so that when she arrived Sarah was besprinkled once again with blood. They found the bark canoe in readiness at about a hundred yards above the waterfall, and having laid their prisoner down they lashed her in her place with cords that cut deeply into her very flesh.
The cry of the multitude went up as the cry of one man "Vengeance!"
Whirling round and round, the canoe was carried rapidly along. At this moment, upon the opposite bank, were seen two men, Martin Paz and Don Vegal.
" My daughter ! my daughter! " shouted the father as he fell upon his knees.
The canoe swept onwards nearer to the fall. Mounted upon a rock, Martin Paz unwound his long lasso, which ​whistled round his head, and at the very instant when the canoe was being sucked into the eddy of the cataract, the long leather lash was uncoiled, and caught the canoe in its sliding noose.
"Death and destruction!" howled the horde of Indians, beside themselves with rage.
Martin Paz raised his tall figure to its fullest height, and gently drew the canoe, which had been hovering over the abyss, nearer and nearer to himself.
Suddenly an arrow came whizzing through the air, and Martin Paz, falling forwards into the frail bark that carried Sarah, was swallowed up with her in the whirlpool of the cataract. Within a moment another arrow had pierced Don Vegal's heart.
It was bliss to Sarah to know that she and Martin Paz were joined in eternal nuptials, and the last thought of the maiden was that he was thus baptized into the faith which in her heart she loved.
THE END
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