CHAPTER XI.
ONE CHANCE IN TEN.
Pedro was as ragged as all the rest of the rebels, but he was brown, not black or yellow. He was barefooted and wore on his head a battered straw hat. His only weapon was a machete, fastened about his waist by a piece of rope. He was a man of middle age, and from his manner there was not the least doubt of his loyalty to the daughter of his former captain. He carried a small parcel, knotted up in a dusty handkerchief, and laid it on the ground near the water jar; then, drawing off and keeping close watch of the timber behind him, he began speaking hurriedly in Spanish.
The girl’s face lighted up as she listened. Once in a while she interrupted the torrent of words pouring! from Pedro’s lips to put in a question, then subsided and let the torrent flow on.
For five minutes, perhaps, Pedro talked and gesticulated. At the end of that time he pulled off his tattered hat, extracted a scrap of folded paper from the crown and handed it to the girl. Then, with a quick, low-spoken “Adios!” he vanished into the forest.
As soon as he was safely away, Ysabel turned toward the bushes where the boys had been concealed and clapped her hands.
“Come!” she called; “I have something to tell you.”
Bob and Dick hurried to join her.
“What’s it about?” asked Dick eagerly.
“It’s about your friends, of whom you were telling me when Pedro came. They have been captured——”
“I must say there’s nothing pleasing about that!”