"What is it?" demanded Antonio as he joined the two gauchos. "You called, amico? Did you see or hear anything?"
Dudley saw the eyes of the ruffian flash as he turned towards his man, for the moon fell directly upon his upturned face. He longed to know what was passing between them.
"Hear anything?" was the answer. "How can a man say? Perhaps it was the wind, perhaps a twig dropping from the tree tops, shot away by the dogs. I thought I heard a fellow moving, but that was two minutes ago. Listen, and you may be wiser than I am."
The three stood in the illuminated patch for perhaps five minutes, making not so much as a sound, while from the poise of their heads it was clear that they were listening. Then Antonio gave a gesture of disgust, and swung round on his heel.
"Ghosts, ghosts! always the same!" he exclaimed angrily. "You men are always seeing and hearing what does not exist. There is Bico, down on the opposite side. An hour ago he swore that he saw someone moving on his right and fired. It was a tree, and his bullet is buried deep in the trunk. But you are a careful man. You are wise to take note of even the smallest sound. However, it is not on this side that we need expect an attempt at escape. It is yonder, close to the pampas. Move to your right and you may be the lucky one to discover one of the dogs."
He turned again, stared into the forest, and was moving away, when once more a shot startled the silence, a shot which came from the fort burrowed at the roots of the trees behind Dudley. Crisp and clear it came, and, as fortune would have it, not a tree trunk stood in the way of the muzzle. It flew direct to the object at which it had been aimed, and in an instant Antonio's surly lieutenant was down, dropping without a sound in the very centre of the little clearing. A moment later Antonio and the other gaucho were gone, slinking away to another part of the forest.
"A good shot, and one which will help me immensely," thought Dudley. "It has cleared the way nicely, and now, with a little luck, I should be able to get through."
On hands and knees again, feverish with the desire to get through the encircling line, and yet curbing his impatience—for haste here might mean failure and death,—he slid in under the brambles, burrowed his path amidst the trees, and, inch by inch, foot by foot, gradually increased his distance from the fort he had left behind.
The minutes were like hours, the crackle of a feeble, mouldering leaf under his knee sounded to him in his overstrung condition like a rifle report, while the thud of one of the enemy's rifles against a distant tree was crushing in its intensity. It brought him to a halt, palpitating, with perspiration streaming from his forehead.
"No, not discovered! He was a funk, a coward, to be startled so easily. Was he a baby, a little child, to be frightened because a leaf crackled, or a twig fell from a neighboring tree? A fine fellow the gauchos had allowed to make this attempt!"