There was more delay than they had anticipated in the entrance of the men, but it was explained when, in a few minutes, they entered the cavern holding lighted torches. The tattooed men came first, and immediately upon entering set up such a howling as made the echoes of the place beat against each other until the din was little less than deafening.
After the tattooed men came the young girls with the baskets, delivering the latter to the howling men, and then going in procession towards the end where the terrified boys stood. It was inevitable that discovery of them should ensue, and it did.
The girls came on whispering to each other, and unconscious of the boys until they were almost upon them, when they stared full into the white faces that were so unlike anything they had ever seen before. The frightened girls stopped, pressed back, and then turned and fled with loud screams.
“The men will come now,” said Juan, huskily.
“They shall never take me alive,” said Diego.
It was not for some time that the tattooed men could be made to comprehend that something had frightened the girls that was worthy of their attention; but after hearing such explanations as the girls could make, they caught up some of the torches and advanced in a body, holding the torches over their heads and peering before them.
Their astonishment, their fright perhaps, was hardly less than that of the girls, for they could see not merely the strange, white faces, but the singular clothing and the glittering knife-blades. They spoke to each other in quick, jerky sentences, and advanced with the utmost caution until they were within ten yards of the boys.
They stared in silence, as they stood there, and the boys stared back. Then one of the men, seeming to pluck up courage to speak, addressed a question to the boys.
“What does he say?” whispered Juan.
“I don’t understand all the words,” answered Diego, “but I think he wants to know who we are. From the way he asks he seems to think we are gods.”