Shortly after 9 o’clock he sees six forms cross the band of moonlight into the shadows beyond. He waits ten minutes and then glides softly down the stairway and out into the night.
Alvarez and his men leave the hotel afoot and instead of taking the railroad track, proceed down the highway. Alvarez rode over the ground during the afternoon and selected a point about a mile and a half below the village as the place for holding up the train. Here the road crosses the railway and beyond is a long stretch of straight track.
The six proceed silently to the appointed spot, and then, there being no further occasion for secrecy, they fall to smoking and chatting. The train is due at Jibana at 10 and there is yet half an hour to wait.
Twenty minutes of it go by, when Alvarez discovers that his party is short two men.
“Ho! Sancho! Francisco!” he calls, and repeats the shout, there being no response. “Whither went they, Parker?” he asks, turning to his orderly.
“They were here a few minutes ago, captain. I last noticed them strolling toward the road.”
Alvarez utters an impatient growl. “Search them out, Pedro, and thou, too, Juan. The train will be here in five minutes.”
As the two troopers addressed take themselves off in quest of their companions Alvarez lights a lantern and hands it to the orderly.
“By the way, what disposition is to be made of the prisoner?” asks the latter.
“We shall have to shoot him, I expect,” is the cool response. “We can’t very well take him with us, and we certainly cannot turn him loose.”