Presently four men emerged boldly from the shadow, and arm in arm, and with unsteady gait approached the prison. In hiccoughing tones they sang a Spanish drinking song. In the bright glare of the moonlight the boys could see that they wore the uniform of Spain.
"Pshaw," said Harry, in a disgusted tone. "They are only a lot of drunken Spanish soldiers after all, making their way back to the barracks."
Harry was keenly disappointed. He had been confident that the strange movements of the men indicated that some action was on foot which he imagined Captain Dynamite was directing.
"But where are the others?" whispered Bert. "There are more in the shadow."
"Probably waiting a chance to slip into the barracks without attracting too much attention from their officers."
The four men reeled on. The regular pacing of the sentinel ceased and he hailed the approaching quartet in a jocular way. They answered with thick tongues and coarse laughter. Presently they passed out of view of the boys, having come close within the shadow of the wall below them.
Then suddenly there was a muffled sound as of one trying to cry out with a heavy pressure on his throat, the hard breathing of men desperately struggling, and then silence.
The boys looked at one another in wonderment. What could it mean? Possibly a drunken squabble between the men and the guard. Now the slow pacing of the sentinel was resumed. Apparently the difficulty had been adjusted.
"I think we might as well get to bed," said Harry, after they had waited for ten minutes without any further developments. "There is nothing doing to-night, I guess."
As he spoke, the cry of a night bird sounded on the still air, but, strangely enough, it seemed to come from directly below their window, instead of from the air above. Almost immediately an answering call was heard in the distance, and then all was still again.