“No, no! Come!” and, catching me by the arm, Alano led the way around the clearing.
It was a bad move, for no sooner had we turned than the officer called out to several soldiers stationed at a stable in the rear of the house. These leaped on their horses, pistols and sabers in hand, and, riding hard, soon surrounded us.
“Halte!” came the command; and in a moment more my Cuban chum and myself found ourselves prisoners.
[CHAPTER IV.]
IN A NOVEL PRISON.
I looked with much foreboding upon the faces of the soldiers who had surrounded us. All were stern almost to the verge of cruelty, and the face of the captain when he came up was no exception to the rule. Alano and I learned afterward that Captain Crabo had met the day previous with a bitter attack from the insurgents, who had wounded six of his men, and this had put him in anything but a happy frame of mind.
“Who are you?” he demanded in Spanish, as he eyed us sharply.
Alano looked at me in perplexity, and started to ask me what he had best say, when the Spanish captain clapped the flat side of his sword over my chum’s mouth.