“Well, yes, sir, it was, and is,” said the old soldier, giving Cyril another dig. “Can’t say as I should like to lie all night on my back with my hands tied behind me to a big pole, and my ankles and knees served the same, just as if I was going to be roasted for a cannibal’s dinner, and to make it worse, an old worsted stocking rammed into my mouth, and a cloth tied over it and behind my neck, to make sure I didn’t get it out.”
“What!” cried Perry.
“I said a stocking rammed into my month, sir, so as I shouldn’t holler, only breathe. It is hard on a man, but what was you to do?”
“Then you didn’t kill them,” cried Perry joyfully.
“Kill ’em,” said John Manning, in a tone full of disgust. “Did you ever know a British soldier, as was a soldier, go killing folk in that way, sir, when they’d been made prisoners? Master Perry, sir, I’m ashamed o’ you for thinking such a thing o’ your father, as is as fine an officer as ever stepped.”
“Not so much ashamed of me as I am of myself,” said Perry huskily. “Then Diego and the other man are all right?”
“They don’t think so,” said the old soldier with a chuckle. “They’re precious uncomfortable by this time, for I rammed the stockings pretty far, and I tied them knots with those new hide ropes as tight as they’d draw.”
“Quiet there, quiet,” said the colonel sternly, for he had stopped and let the mules pass him. “No more talking for the present. Can you hear anything?”
“No, sir, not a sound,” said John Manning. But even as he spoke there was a faint cry borne on the night wind from high up the valley, and situated as they were, that sound could only have one meaning—pursuit.