"If you are very anxious to go. What an obstinate child! But indeed I too am curious to hear this orchestra."
Only Nieves, Victorina, Carmen, Segundo, and Tropiezo took part in the expedition. The elders remained behind smoking and looking on at the important operation of covering and closing some of the vats which contained the must, now fermented. As Mendez saw the party about to start, he called out in a tone of paternal warning:
"Take care with the descent. The pine needles in this hot weather are as slippery as if they had been rubbed with soap. The ladies must be helped down. You, Victorina, don't be crazy; don't go rushing about there."
The famous pine grove was distant some quarter of a league, but they spent fully three-quarters of an hour in making the ascent, along a path as steep, narrow, and rugged as the ascent to heaven is said to be, and which long before reaching the wood was carpeted with the polished, smooth, dry pine needles, which, if they rendered the descent more easy than was agreeable, compensated for it by making the ascent extremely difficult, causing the foot to slip, and fatiguing the ankles and the knees. Nieves stopped from time to time to take breath, and was at last fain to avail herself of the support of the plump arm of Carmen Agonde.
"_Caramba_, this is like practicing gymnastics! Whoever escapes being killed when we are going back will be very lucky."
"Lean well on me, lean well on me," said the sturdy country girl. "Many a limb has been broken here already, no doubt. This ascent is terrible!"
They reached the summit at last. The prospect was beautiful, with that species of beauty that borders on sublimity. The pine wood seemed to hang over an abyss. Between the trunks of the trees could be caught glimpses of the mountains, of an ashen blue blending into violet in the distance; on the other side of the pine wood, that which overlooked the river, the ground fell abruptly in a steep, almost perpendicular descent, while far below flowed the Avieiro, not winding peacefully along, but noisy and foaming, roused into rage by the barrier opposed to its progress by some sharp black rocks and separating into numerous currents that curled around the bowlders like angry green snakes covered with silver scales. To the roaring and sobbing of the river the pine wood kept accompaniment with its perpetual plaint intoned by the summits of the trees, which swayed and vibrated to the kisses of the breeze, dolorous kisses that drew from them an incessant moan.