"You and I will go to the hacienda," said Will to the Indian, "and see if we can find out where the señores are."
"I go alone, señor," replied Azito. "I can move as quietly as a snake. No one will hear me. Was it not I that made the hole in the wall? Let the señor stay here until I bring him word."
Anxious and impatient though he was, Will had to confess to himself that Azito's suggestion was reasonable. The Indian was accustomed to the woods: he might evade observation by a hundred artifices of which Will was ignorant. In any case one would go more safely than two.
"Very well," said Will. "Be as quick as you can."
The Indian slipped noiselessly away. Will spent the first part of the morning in cleaning the engine. When this was done he moved restlessly about among the trees, worried because he could do nothing, nor even form any plans until he had more information. He watched the bright-coloured birds flitting among the foliage, caught a tree frog, and examined it with a naturalist's curiosity, followed a cayman as it hunted for food along the bank; but all this palled upon him after a time, and as hour after hour passed, and Azito did not return, he became more and more uneasy. What had happened to the man? Had he fallen into the clutches of his old master? At the best he would be unmercifully thrashed; and if by any chance Captain Espejo had learnt of his association with the Englishmen, as he might do from one of the railway peons who had been impressed, Will trembled for the poor Indian's fate.
As the sun rose higher, it became oppressively hot in the moist atmosphere of the wood. At noon Will and José ate a simple dinner; then the former lay down in the hydroplane to snatch a nap. But the air of the recess was so stuffy, and insects bit him so ferociously, that at last he could endure his inactivity no longer. José had been several times to the edge of the wood to watch for Azito's return. When he came back after one of these excursions, and reported that there was still no sign of him, Will sprang up.
"I am going after him, José," he said. "You stay here and watch the boat. Do not leave it until I come."
He climbed up the bank and set off through the wood. If he went straight through it, he would emerge almost within bowshot of the hacienda. It occurred to him that he would run less risk if he came down on the camp from the opposite side rather than from the river front. Accordingly he struck off to the right, and presently reached the margin of the wood near the deserted railway camp. Looking around to make sure that no one was in sight, he ran across the open space, still littered with the débris of the camp, and crawled over the embankment. A few hundred yards on the other side of this was a long stretch of forest. He entered this, and then turning to the left, hurried on as fast as he could through the clinging tangled undergrowth. Here and there the trees thinned and he bent low so that his form should not show above the vegetation. Sometimes too he came to an expanse of bare rising ground, and had to go a long way round to avoid it. But the embankment always served as a screen, and about three o'clock he arrived at a point where he could hear the distant sounds of the camp and knew that he was coming within reach of danger.
Leaving the wood, he climbed the embankment, and lay down at the top to view the camp. He saw that, as he had guessed when passing it on the stream, it had been removed, and was now established nearly half-a-mile away in the grounds of the hacienda, which the tents practically encircled. He surmised that his escape from the stables had made General Carabaño anxious about his own safety. If a man could get out, a man could get in, and the General had many enemies. Difficult as access had been before, it was now immeasurably more difficult, and Will felt with a sinking heart that his friends' plight was even more serious than he had believed.
He was still lying on the embankment, wondering what had become of Azito, and how he was to do anything for the prisoners, when he suddenly became aware that he was not alone. He had heard no sound except the distant hum from the camp. Turning quickly and whipping out his revolver, but still having the prudence not to rise to his feet, he was confronted by Azito himself, who had crawled up to his side. He was conscious now that his heart was thumping wildly against his ribs.