"Hungry?" he asked, coming toward the entrance.
"I wouldn't object to something warm," Teddy replied with a laugh; "but I suppose it isn't safe to build a fire till after dark."
"We can have one now," the Indian said, as he began to crawl through the passage.
"There," Jake said triumphantly, as Poyor disappeared, "you can see how much danger there would be in our taking a stroll. Yesterday he wouldn't let a fellow whisper, and now we're to cook as if such a tribe as the Chan Santa Cruz had never existed."
"That doesn't make the slightest difference so far as we are concerned. He could go in safety where you'd be certain to get into trouble."
Again the engineer was silenced but not convinced and Neal's fears that some dangerously foolish move might be made by him, were increased.
When Poyor returned he brought with him a small quantity of wood, more mud, and a bundle of green leaves.
At the further end of the cave he built a fire; encased the fish as he previously had the "chickens," piled the embers over them, and then, in the canteen brought by Cummings, he steeped the leaves.
Breakfast or dinner, whichever it might be called was ready in half an hour, and when Poyor set the repast before them, where all could be on the alert while eating, Teddy exclaimed:
"Those leaves must have been from a tea plant; it seems quite like being on the yacht again to smell that."