The boys withdrew from the road, Don Estevan proceeding ahead. They heard the sound of the galloping hoofs pause, as their rider met the Spaniard. There was a talk for a few minutes, and then the horseman again rode forward at full speed. Don Estevan paused for a little while, to allow him to get beyond earshot, and then rejoined his companions.
"I have great news," he said, "and it is for you to decide whether it will alter your plan of proceeding. The man whom I have just met is a messenger, dispatched by the governor of Arica to Lima, to warn the governor there that an English ship, under the noted freebooter Francis Drake, has put into that harbor; and has started again, sailing for the north, after exacting certain contributions, but otherwise refraining from injuring the town."
The boys gave a shout of joy, for they had begun to fear that the expedition must have met with some disaster, in doubling Cape Horn, and been compelled to return.
"What will you do?" the Spaniard asked.
"Return to Lima!" the boys exclaimed, simultaneously. "We shall be there before the admiral can arrive, and can then rejoin our comrades."
"That will indeed be your best plan," Don Estevan said; "but you must be disguised thoroughly. However, you are not likely to be so closely investigated as you otherwise would be, at Lima; for you may be sure that, when the messenger arrives there, the town will be in such a ferment of excitement, at the approach of your countrymen, that our little affair will, for the time, be entirely forgotten."
"I trust," Ned said, "that we shall be able to do something to render your security more perfect; for, if I mistake not, when the admiral hears of the doings of the officials of the Inquisition, how many people they have burned to death lately at Lima, and what frightful cruelties they have perpetrated in that ghastly prison, he will burn the place to the ground and hang up the judges; in which case we may be sure that no further inquiry will ever be thought of, concerning the attack on the prison. What do you advise us to do, senor? For it is clear that your best course is to return to Arica, direct."
"I cannot think of doing that," the generous young Spaniard replied. "A few days' longer absence will pass unnoticed, especially as people will have plenty of other matters to think, and talk, about. I do not see how you can possibly obtain disguises without my assistance; and as our pursuers will long since have been thrown off our track, and will probably have given up the search and have returned to Lima, convinced that we already have crossed the mountains and are beyond their reach. I think that there is little danger in my nearing the city.
"Come, let us turn our horses' heads, at once."
In a few minutes, they were returning by the route they had hitherto traveled They were already dressed as young Spaniards. The disguises had been brought by their rescuer, and assumed at the first halt. He himself had also washed the paint from his face and hands, and had assumed European garb, in order that any inquiry about three mounted Indians might be baffled.