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"I will try at once," Bertie said. "I have got lots of cases made, and enough burned stuff to make eight or ten more." |
The mixture was soon made and another case charged, Bertie ramming down the mixture with a stick which he had cut to fit exactly, and a heavy stone as a hammer. This was done after each half-spoonful of the mixture was poured in. Then he inserted a strip of his touch-paper. |
"I will take this in my hand," he said, "there is no fear of its exploding. I want to throw it into the air and see how it burns there." |
The touch-paper was lit, and when the mixture started burning Bertie waved the squib high above his head and threw it into the air. It flew along some fifteen yards and then exploded. |
"I don't think you can better that, Bertie. But you might make the cases a bit stronger; it burned out a little too quickly. We shall probably not be able to get very close to them." |
The cracker was equally satisfactory, except that they agreed that a somewhat larger charge of powder should be used to increase the noise of the explosion. |
"Now, Bertie," Harry said, "we will put all hands on to the business. Donna Maria shall make a good stock of paste, and cut the tick into strips for both widths. You shall make the cases for the squibs. Dias and I will take charge of the manufacture of charcoal. That will be a long job, for as you have two pounds of gunpowder we shall want ten of this charred wood." |
"Not quite as much as that, Harry, because we shall want the powder alone for the crackers and the bangs of the squibs, and also for making the touch-paper for all of them." |
"Well, we will say ten pounds, anyhow. We have a big stock of cartridges, and can spare a few of them for so good a purpose." |
They were soon at work. By night the cases were all made and drying, and were left near the fire so as to be ready for filling in the morning. |
Dias then said: "José will go down to-night, senor. Of course I shall go with him. We must find out, in the first place, how near the mouth of the ravine the savages are gathered, whether they keep any watch, and what force they have. It will be well not to make ourselves known to them until at least the greater part are gathered there. If we were only to scare a small party, the others, when they came down, would know nothing of the panic, and might take up the pursuit." |
"I wish we had some means of driving them off the top of the hill, Dias." |
"I don't see how that can be done, senor. But probably in another day or two they will all go down of their own accord. They must by this time have satisfied themselves that there is no getting at us from above, and that it would be too dangerous to attempt a descent here under the fire of our guns. They will be very likely, instead, to go down to-morrow or next day to hold a general council, and in that case they may decide either to risk climbing down at night, or to make a grand assault on the breast-work. Or, if they cannot bring themselves to that, they may decide to leave half a dozen men to watch the entrance, while the rest scatter themselves over the forests. In that case the watchers would only have to go off and summon them when we started again. As they might well imagine that we should not find another position like this again, I expect that is what they will do. If there are a hundred of them, they will find it difficult to feed themselves long. Certainly the men on the hills will get little to eat up there." |
"Well, Dias, be sure you warn José to be careful. They may be posting sentries at the mouth of the ravine, just as they are keeping them at this end." |
"They may be, but I do not think it is likely; they will know that we could not abandon our animals, and that if we passed through they would have no difficulty in over-taking us, and would then have us at their mercy. The last thing they would want is to prevent us from leaving this position. They certainly would not fear an attack from us, knowing that there are but four of us and a woman. Therefore, I think it probable that they will keep at some little distance from the entrance, so as to tempt us to come out." |
"I hope it is so, Dias. Still, José will have to be very careful." |
"He will be careful, senor. He knows his own life will depend upon his crawling along as noiselessly as a snake. If he is seen, of course he will come at all speed back to me; and, unless he is hit by a chance arrow, he will not run much risk, for by the time they are ready to shoot he will be out of sight on such dark nights as these, and in the shade of the mountains and trees. I shall be ready to send four barrels of buck-shot among them when they come up. That is sure to stop them long enough to allow us to get under the cover of your rifles before they can overtake us. |
"I don't think that you need be at all uneasy about him, senor. We will start in an hour's time, so that José can get near them before they go to sleep. They will probably have a fire burning, but if not the only guide to their position will be the sound of their talking. He will strip before he leaves me, so that if they catch sight of him, they will suppose that he is one of themselves." |
Bertie now relieved José, who came back and had a long talk with Dias. |
"We are ready now, senor." |
"Here is my fowling-piece. It is already loaded with buck-shot. Bertie has taken down his rifle and gun, and will give you the latter as you pass. I suppose José will take no weapons?" |
"Only a long knife, senor, that may be useful if he comes upon one of them suddenly." |
At the barricade José stripped, retaining only a pair of sandals. These were as noiseless as his bare feet, and would be needed, as in the dark he might tread upon a thorny creeper, or strike against a projecting rock. |
"Good-bye, José!" Harry said. "Now, be careful. It would be a great grief to us if anything happened to you." |
"I will be careful, senor. The Indians won't catch me, never fear." |
Harry and Bertie both shook hands with him, and then he and Dias stepped into the water, and, keeping close along by the wall of rock, started on their perilous expedition. |
"I don't like it, Bert," Harry said as they lost sight of them. "It seems a cowardly thing to let that lad go into danger while we are doing nothing." |
"That is just what I feel, Harry. I would have volunteered willingly, but he will do it a great deal better than either you or I could." |
"There is no doubt about that," Harry agreed. "Of course when he is out with the mules he often travels at night, and certainly both he and Dias can see in the dark a good deal better than we can." |
There was suddenly a slight movement behind them, and they turned sharply round. "It is I, senor. I am anxious about Dias, and I didn't like staying there by myself. I thought you would not mind if I came up and sat by you." |
"Certainly not," Harry said. "Sit down and make yourself comfortable. I do not think there is any fear for Dias. He cannot be taken by surprise, for he will hear by their shouting if they discover José, and you may be quite sure that he will bring them to a stand with the four shots he will fire among them as they come near, and so will get a good start. They might run faster than he can in the forest, but will scarcely be better able to make their way up the torrent." |
When Dias had been gone twenty minutes their conversation ceased, and they sat listening intently. In another ten minutes, which seemed an hour to them, Harry said, "The savages can keep no watch at their end of the torrent, and José must have got safely away." |
Very slowly the time passed. |
"They must have been gone an hour," Bertie said at last. |
"Quite that, I should think, Bertie. At any rate, we may feel assured that all has gone well so far. For, though we might not hear the yells of the savages over the rustle and roar of the torrent, we should certainly hear gunshots." |
Another half-hour passed, and then to their relief they heard Dias call out, "All is well!" some little distance down. In three or four minutes they could see the two figures approaching. "Give me your guns, Dias," Harry said, "and then I will help you up the rocks. They might go off if you were to make a slip. Now, while José is putting on his clothes, tell me what he has found out." |
"I have not heard much, senor. As soon as he rejoined me we started off, and, coming up the torrent, we had not much chance of talking. He told me that there were many of them, and that they were camped at some little distance from the stream, just as I thought they would be." |
"I will stay here, Harry," Bertie said. "You can hear the news and then come and tell me." |
"Very well. I will be back before long." |
Dias, his wife, and Harry walked down towards the tent, and Bertie chatted with José while the latter was dressing. |
"You must feel horribly cold, José," he said. |
"I am cold, now I think of it. I did not notice it while I was watching the savages. When I took to the water again I did feel it. Maria will make me a cup of hot coffee, and then I shall be all right again. It was good fun to look at them, and know that they had no idea that I was so close. If I could have understood their language, I should have learned something worth telling. I felt inclined to scare them by giving a tremendous yell, and I know I could have got away all right. They were sitting round a big fire and would not have been able to see in the dark. I should have done it, only I thought Dias would have blamed me for letting them know that one of us had come down the canon." |
"He would have been angry, José, and so would my brother, for they would certainly have set a watch afterwards, which would have spoilt all our plans. Now run along, your teeth are chattering, and the sooner you get something warm and wrap yourself up in your blankets the better." |
The fire had burnt low when the others returned, but an armful of sticks was thrown upon it at once. The kettle had been left in the embers at its edge by Maria when she started, so that after it had hung in the blaze for two or three minutes it began to boil, and coffee was soon ready. At this point José ran in, and after he had drunk a large mugful he told them what he had learned. |
"When I left Dias at the mouth of the ravine," he said, "everything seemed quiet. I walked along the edge of the stream for fifty yards, keeping my ears open, you may be sure, and I saw a light glow close under the rocks some distance on the other side of the river. I followed the stream down till I came to a place where there was a quiet pool, and there I swam across, then very carefully I made my way to where I could see the light. It was quite three hundred yards from the river. As I got near I could hear talking; I crawled along like a cat, and took good care not to disturb a leaf, or to put a hand or a knee upon a dried stick, for I could not tell whether they had anyone on watch near the fire. I perceived no one, and at last came to a point where I could see the flame. It was in an opening running a hundred feet into the mountains, and perhaps forty feet across at the mouth. |
"In this were sixty or seventy savages sitting or standing round a fire, which had evidently been made there so that anyone coming down to the mouth of the ravine should not see it. The fire was not a very large one, and a good many of the men were gathered outside the little hollow. Some of them were talking loudly, and it seemed to me that they were quarrelling over something. Sometimes they pointed up to the top of the hills, sometimes towards the mouth of our ravine. I would have got close if I had understood their language. Presently I saw some of them lying down, so that I could see that the quarrel, whatever it was about, was coming to an end, and that they were going to lie down for the night. As I could learn nothing further I crawled away and went down to the place where I had swum the river before, and then crept quietly up to Dias, who was on the look-out; for although I had seen no one as I had passed before, there might still have been some of them on the watch." |
"You have done very well, José," Harry said. "We have learned two things. First, that they are not keeping watch at the mouth of the ravine, either because they feel sure that we will not try to escape, or because they wish us to leave and are giving us the opportunity of doing so. In the second place, you have learned what force they have got down there, their exact position, and the fact that they were evidently arguing how they had best attack us. Well, from what you say there is every chance that we shall be able to come upon them without being noticed till we are close enough to throw our fireworks among them. Really the only thing for us to learn is whether many of them are still at the top of the hill." |
"I hardly think there can be many; only a few have shown themselves to-day. They must know very well that we would not venture to climb up during the day, and that it would be next to impossible for us to do so in the dark, even if we made up our minds to abandon the animals and all our stores." |
"Well, I should say, Dias, there is no reason why we should put the matter off. It will not take us long to load all the squibs to-morrow. My opinion is that at dusk we had better saddle the mules and pack everything on them in readiness for a start; then at ten o'clock we can go down and attack the savages. The best moment for doing so will be when they are just lying down. When we have sent them flying we will come up the torrent again, and start with the mules as soon as it is daylight. It would be next to impossible to get them down in the dark, as they might very easily break their legs, or by rubbing against the wall shift their packs and tumble them into the water." |
"It would be a pity to waste time, senor. I will get some torches made to-morrow. Some of the trees have resin, and by melting this I can make torches that would do very well. By their aid we could get the mules down without waiting for daylight. As they have already come up the torrent, they will have less fear in going down, for the stream will help them instead of keeping them back. I will go first with José and his mule; she is as steady as a rock, and where she goes the others will follow; and with five torches along the line they will be able to see well enough." |
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