The words came like blows, so unexpected were they. In a flash Dudley saw himself and his men prisoners, and the task which he had set himself, and from which he had hoped for so much, turned into a terrible disaster. In a second he realized that all his suspicions of this Antonio Sarvisti were more than well founded, and that the capture of his little band would leave Mr. Blunt and his estancia open to instant attack. The forest was before him, black and forbidding, and sheltering beneath its deep shadow the ruffian whose movements he had returned to watch, while behind lay the moonlit pampas, and freedom if he could but escape. Then he thought of the rifles, which no doubt covered every member of his band, and realized that a movement of the horses would mean death for many of his men. Surrender alone seemed to be left, and then——
"Pepito," he whispered, "there is only one course. Will the men support me?"
"Try them, señor," came the crisp answer.
"Then let them dismount as if about to surrender. The instant they are off their horses they are to lie full length and wriggle forward into the forest. We will fight these fine fellows in their own cover."
"Well, the señor has thought it out?" came the jeering question from the forest. "He is about to surrender. That is well. Dismount and no harm shall come to you."
Without troubling to reply, Dudley flung his leg across the pommel of his saddle and slipped to the ground, each one of the party following his example. Then, in less time than it takes to tell, all were on their faces and creeping rapidly towards the cover.
"Treachery! Fire on them!" shouted Antonio, suddenly realizing that a trick was being played. "Call the flanks out into the open and let them surround these men as was arranged. Fire on them, or they will give us trouble."
The squat figure of the rascal showed up for one instant, as a gleaming ray from the moon penetrated through a break in the trees and fell upon him, then he, too, slid to the ground, and in a flash was hidden from view. A second later a volley spurted from the dense cover in front, the bullets ripping the leaves and hurtling out over the pampas. Then there came a solitary shot. Crash! A rifle, fired from a point some six yards away, suddenly lit up the dense darkness of the forest, while a ball whizzed over Dudley's head and thudded against the flanks of one of the horses. The poor beast rose high in the air and stood there poised on his hind legs; then he lost his balance and tumbled backwards with a crash. But he was up in an instant, and began to lash out in all directions, kicking the other horses till all were in a condition of terror.
Crash! Another shot startled the silence, and then came a cry, the sharp call of a man who has been wounded. It was Pepito, who lay just beside Dudley, and at that moment was creeping into the shadow of a bush on the very edge of the forest. But he was not the lad to make a fuss because a bullet had ripped a hole through the muscles of one of his thighs. One sharp cry of pain he gave, and then, setting his lips, and fixing his eyes on the spot from which the shot had come, he raced forward, bending low all the while and gripping his hunting knife in his hand.
"One to us, I think!" he heard someone exclaim in low tones. "Now for number two."