[Illustration: "With upraised hands, stepped out from amid the screen of foliage">[
Chapter X.
Prisoners.
I believe if at that critical moment I had decided it was best we hold the cave against the foe, regardless of the ultimate consequence, Sergeant Corney would have done my bidding. But immediately I declared myself willing to act as he thought best, the old man threw down his rifle, and, with upraised hands, stepped out from amid the screen of foliage into the very arms of those who were coming up the slope.
Just for one instant there was in my mind the thought that I might slink back into the further end of the cave, and possibly escape detection, unless it so chanced that the savages knew exactly how many were hidden there. But, fortunately, before there was time to do anything so cowardly, a realization of what it meant to thus hang back when I had spoken the words which sent my comrade forward came upon me with full force, and I followed him so closely that he could not have had any suspicion of that which, for the merest fraction of time, found lodgment in my heart.
It was too dark for me to see the look of triumph on the faces of our captors; but I knew they wore such expressions, because of the cries of satisfaction and shouts of delight which burst from them when we, unarmed, stood in their midst.
I was satisfied in my own mind that they had seen the trail, even in the darkness, which had been made when we three entered the cave, or by Jacob as he went out, and had followed it rather from curiosity than the belief that white men were in the vicinity.
This idea of mine, although there was in it nothing favoring to us, gave me no little relief of mind, for it led to the conclusion that Jacob was yet free.
After the first outburst of rejoicing at having taken two captives at a time and in a place where they least expected to find them, the Indians set about securing us in the most businesslike manner.
Some one of the party brought strips of rawhide, by which our hands and arms were bound tightly to our sides, and with so large a surrounding that it would have been impossible to escape even had we been unfettered, they led us down to the village, where we were greeted by the squaws and the children with fiendish cries of delight.