As he spoke these words there was a sudden illumination of the spot where they were sitting round their fire, and the sound of voices was heard. Lights were flashed upon them from the air above, dazzling their eyes and rendering it impossible to make out what had happened or who the speakers were. But the words were unmistakable; some one had called out in harsh, hoarse tones, 'Surrender! You are my prisoners! If you make any attempt at resistance you are all dead men!'
CHAPTER XXX.
CAPTURED.
When the ominous summons to surrender was heard, shouted down from some invisible person in the air above them, it was Malto who took upon himself to reply.
His brain had been working quickly. At first he had feared that it was Agrando's people who had thus found them out, but a moment's reflection convinced him that such a thing was extremely improbable. If it were indeed so, then, such was his detestation of his late master, and horror of again falling into his clutches, that he would rather have died fighting than yield.
But Agrando's men would have acted first. There would have been no preliminary summons; they would simply have used their tridents to render the fugitives powerless at once. The inference was that these must be some other people who were not armed with tridents. All the same, resistance was probably useless, as they could not even see their adversaries, and a fight could only end in one way. So he called out, 'Who are you? And why do you threaten us? We have no quarrel with you, whoever you are. We are peaceable folk.'
'You will find out who we are in good time,' was the answer, given with a grim laugh. 'Will you surrender quietly, or shall we'——
The speaker did not finish the sentence, but waited for an answer, as though he considered it unnecessary to say more.
There were other sounds, however, which had caught Malto's quick ear—sounds as of a number of men moving about amongst the surrounding rocks, and from these he drew the inference that the threat that had been made was not likely to prove an idle one.
'If we yield, what are you going to do with us?' he asked again.