The boys were then given to eat some sort of stew in a big wooden basin and being just healthy American boys and not heroes of romance they ate heartily of the compound and felt better. Muley-Hassan himself examined the cut on Billy's forehead and Lathrop's two wounds and pronounced them mere scratches.
Just as it appeared that a start was about to be made the signal bell of the wireless rang. As our readers know it was Frank signaling from the Moon Mountains.
A sudden idea seemed to strike Diego at this. He called Muley-Hassan aside and talked earnestly with him for a few seconds, then he came up to the boy and demanded fiercely which one of them it was that understood wireless.
Lathrop replied that he did, and the next minute wished that he had bitten out his tongue before he had admitted it; for Diego, in a rough tone, ordered him to sit down at the instrument and reply that all was well at the River Camp.
"And, mind you, youngster—no tricks," he said savagely, "or I'll kill you as dead as mutton. I understand the Morse code myself and can tell what you are sending; and send slow so that I can get every letter."
Lathrop was in a quandary. To refuse to sit down at the instrument meant instant death.
He could tell that by the look in Diego's eyes and from what he had seen of him he knew he would not stop at a little thing like a murder to drive home a point.
The question was, did the man really understand telegraphy? If he didn't and was only, bluffing Lathrop determined to inform Frank of the true state of affairs. Otherwise it would do neither himself nor the others any good to try to trick Diego.
With a prayer on his lips that the Portuguese might not have been stating the truth about his knowledge of wireless the boy started to send. He had in his mind the message he would try to get through:
"We have been attacked. Get help and follow us."