"Captain Dynamite is in this party."
"Ah! He is the terrible Captain Dynamite?" gasped the commander, taking a few steps backward and pointing at Villamonte. O'Connor put his finger to his lips and said:
"'Sh! Remember I have not said so."
"I understand, Captain O'Connor. I am honored by your confidence. Pass on with your prisoner with what speed you may."
The party made their way rapidly through the lines and within an hour, with O'Connor as guide, they had reached the shelter of the thick brush that separated them from the lagoon where the Mariella lay.
"Now, boys," said O'Connor, as he slackened his pace, "you are as safe as if you were under your own roof trees. There are a thousand men at our command lying within these woods and stretched from the coast to the mountain yonder. All of Spain's army could not fight its way through that line."
"Why have we not been challenged by the sentries?" asked Harry. "The Spaniards might creep among them as we have done."
"O, no, we are expected and our approach has been watched and covered by ready guns for some time. There are men now within ten feet of us. See?"
O'Connor uttered that peculiar bird cry, which was answered at once from the bushes near at hand, and the next moment, as silently as an Indian, a man stepped out in front of them and saluted O'Connor.
"Where is the general?" asked the captain.