Acting on this suggestion the boys made a survey of the room. It was a square apartment, with walls of grey stone. The floor was composed of smooth stone slabs. The ceiling was heavily timbered. There were two barred openings in one of the walls just above their heads. They pushed over the table, and climbing up on it, looked out. In the moonlight, they could see that the outlook was on what was apparently the jail yard, a large space enclosed by a high wall. Nothing interposed between them and the free air outside but two iron bars. They shook these with all their strength, but they were sunk firmly in the stone frame and would not budge.
"I don't think they need feel uneasy, for fear we will escape," said Harry, after they had finished their inspection.
"Nothing left but to knock down the turnkey. Must always call 'em turnkeys in a stone jail like this."
There was a sound of a key in the lock and the door swung open again. The man with the clanking keys entered, followed by two others, who promptly slipped a pair of handcuffs on the wrists of the boys, and taking each boy by the arm they led them out of the jail and back to the building into which they had first been ushered at the muzzles of the guns.
The same dignitary who had ordered their incarceration still sat at his desk, although in a more dignified attitude. At his right, sat a man who seemed to be a clerk. On the left, stood the fat officer and the four soldiers. An elderly man with grey side-whiskers stood near the desk talking with the presiding personage. When the boys entered he approached them and held out his hand.
"I am Consul Wyman. I understand you are Americans and in some sort of trouble."
Both boys grasped his hand warmly. It was a great relief to find one who spoke their tongue and who could make their situation clear to their captors. And the thought that he represented officially the Government of the United States, restored much of their waning confidence in themselves.
"Mr. Wyman," said Harry, "we certainly are glad to meet you. We are Americans and we are in trouble with these Spanish gentlemen. We do not know why yet. We did not know it was a crime, or against the laws to travel in Cuba or we should have selected some other country for our explorations."
"The trouble is that your presence in this part of the island strikes the authorities as suspicious. You have apparently passed through none of the regular ports of entry, for a careful watch is kept on all strangers here now, and travelling through a country so infested as this is with Cuban bandits——"
"Bandits?" interrupted Harry, looking Mr. Wyman straight in the eye. Captain Dynamite's teachings had taken very deep root in the heart of the American boys.