Then above them towered the fatal wave, and with a confused roar, it broke over them in sweltering foam and they were swept towards the black front of the cliff. Then came the impact against the rock and the next moment, stunned and bruised, Jim holding to the pommel of the saddle, with a death-grip, was carried out to sea with Caliente in the grasp of the retreating wave.
It was all over, as like pieces of drift, horse and rider were swept away, but fortune does sometime favor the brave and, being caught in a powerful current, Caliente was carried South of the headland and his progress towards the sea was stayed by a rock that rose high, an outer-guard of the headland. So then the next great wave bore them toward the beach, and once Caliente got his feet upon the sandy bottom he braced himself against the fierce pull of the retreating sea, striving to drag him back again.
Though almost unconscious, Jim clung to the saddle with his body half-drooping over the pommel. Then Caliente plunged blindly forward until he stood with head bent down and nose almost touching the sand, his great sides heaving, but safe at last.
In the distance, a horseman could be seen coming at full gallop along the straight line of the beach. It was Jo, who finally had become frightened by the non-appearance of his two comrades and had turned back. His fright had been increased by seeing a horse and rider coming apparently out of the sea.
When he came up, he found his brother Jim sitting on the sand still half dazed but slowly coming to himself.
"Where's the Senor, Jim?" cried Jo. This question served to bring Jim completely to himself. He got up, looking pale, with one side of his face bruised to a real blackness, and the flesh of his left hand badly torn, where it had struck the cliff, but he was not thinking of these matters.
"Why, Jo, the Senor came after me. Where is he?" Then it came over him all at once, that his companion was even now caught between the jaws of the black cliff.
"But how did you ever get around that cliff?" asked Jo.
Already it was an awesome sight as the waves crashed in foam against its front and rushed shoreward along its black sides. It seemed impossible that only fifteen minutes before Jim had actually come around that foaming headland.