“Here, there mustn’t be any of this,” muttered Halstead, shaking himself awake. “I mustn’t fail to get back to the boat on time.”
After that he was wide awake. But the green, the quiet and the cool air made the young captain feel that he did not care to leave this spot until it was necessary. For perhaps fifteen minutes more he sat chewing at a wisp of grass and thinking—always of the missing heir.
Then the sound of a short little cough made him look up. Some one was coming along the road. That some one came in sight. Almost choking with astonishment, Halstead went backward over the wall. It looked as though he had fallen, but it was all part of his frantic wish to get out of sight.
“Alvarez, by all that’s unbelievable!” he gasped, as he lay utterly still behind that wall. “It doesn’t look like him, but it’s his size, his carriage, his walk, his little tickling cough as he inhales his cigarette!”
The man was coming nearer, walking at a steady though not rapid gait. Tom hugged himself as close to the ground as he could, peering between two stones in the wall. For an instant, as the other went by, Halstead had a good glimpse of the fellow. Where Alvarez had but a moustache, this man had a full black beard. Gone were the brown striped trousers, for this man wore a blue serge suit. But the face was swarthy; there was the same gleam in the dark eyes. Even the way of holding the fuming little cigarette was the same.
“It’s Alvarez, or his double, disguised,” breathed Halstead, frantic with joy. “I’ll jump on him, and pin him to the earth!”
On swift second thought the excited boy changed his mind. It might serve a far bigger purpose to follow this swarthy little rascal, if he could do so undetected.
Alvarez, apparently, wasn’t suspicions of being trailed, for he kept steadily on. Halstead followed on the other side of the wall, ready to drop out of sight at the first sign of the other’s turning. When the wall ended the boy found other shelter, and followed on. It was but a short chase. A quarter of a mile further on the Spaniard left the road, pushing his way through the bushes and undergrowth of a patch of woods until he came to a small, almost hidden cove. And in this cove, her stern within stepping distance of the land, lay a yellow-hulled steam launch.
Tom sank low behind the bushes, and peered through. He could see all that followed.
“Pedro!” called Alvarez, softly.