“A prisoner?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“At camp down by river. They kill udder prisoner, now rob dis one an' kill too. Bad men—no good soldiers.”
I agreed with him on this point. Yet I was not satisfied that he should go back and attack the pair while they were off their guard.
“It would not be fair,” I said, “and, besides, the noise may bring more soldiers down upon us. I wish we could do something for their prisoner, whoever he is.”
We talked the matter over, and, seeing the soldiers depart, concluded to follow them. We proceeded as silently as two shadows, and during the walk Jorge overheard one soldier tell the other that the prisoner was to be shot at sunrise.
A turn in the path brought us to a broad and roughly flowing stream. Here a temporary camp had been pitched. Half a dozen dirty-looking Spaniards were lolling on the ground, smoking and playing cards. From their talk Jorge said they were waiting for some of their former comrades to join them, when all were to travel back to where the Spanish commander, Captain Campona, had been left.
“There ees the prisoner,” said Jorge, in a whisper, and pointed along the river shore to where rested a decaying tree, half in and half out of the water. The prisoner was strapped with rawhides to one of the tree branches, and it was—my chum Alano!