All of us followed him back into the woods, and along a trail which he declared must bring us to another seaport town, eight miles to the east of Santiago Bay. We put spurs to our steeds, and long before nightfall half a dozen miles of the uneven way had been covered.
As fast as we were able to do so, my father and I rode side by side, and never had I felt happier than then, while he was equally pleased. As we journeyed along I told my story from beginning to end, and then he told his own—how he had been captured and taken for a spy, how cruelly he had been treated, and all. Just before he had received Captain Guerez' message he had given up all hope, and even while on the road he had been fearful that the plan to rescue him would miscarry.
“What do you think we had best do?” I asked, after our stories were told.
“I wish to get out of the country as soon as possible, Mark. I cannot stand the climate. Half a dozen times I have felt as if I was going to be taken down with the fever. That injured leg took away a good bit of my strength.”
“Can we take passage from the town to which we are bound?”
“We can try,” answered my father.
Another half-mile was covered, and we were beginning to consider that we had made good our retreat from the spot where the encounter with the Spanish soldiers had occurred, when suddenly a deep baying broke out at our rear, causing Alano and the captain to give a simultaneous cry of alarm.
“What is it?” asked Burnham.
“What is it!” was the answer from the captain. “Can’t you hear? The heartless wretches have set several bloodhounds on our trail!”
“Bloodhounds!” we echoed.