'Why has he changed his pace?' said Frank quickly.
'For no reason that I can tell,' said Pedro, 'unless the others showed themselves.'
'They can never have been so mad,' said Frank. 'And yet I think he must have seen them. Did the page come by us?'
'No,' answered Pedro.
'Did he go back?' asked Frank.
'I could not hear,' said the Cimaroon.
'Surely they must have shown themselves,' said Frank. 'Yet there is nothing for it but to lie still and wait.'
I thought of Sergeant Culverin and his agua ardiente, but held my peace. Silently we lay again listening breathlessly to the sound of the galloping horse dying away in the distance towards Panama, and the growing clamour of the bells on either hand, not knowing how far we were descried, and being wholly unable to find out. Had the horseman seen anything, and would he warn the recuas of their danger? As we listened the full jangling of the mule-bells ceased and gave place to a fitful tinkle. It was now the sound of mules at a standstill, which shook themselves or tried to lick the places where the flies had galled them. Faint cries of impatient men mingled with the broken sound, and at last we could not doubt but that they had stopped. Frank and Pedro looked at each other blankly.
'They have surely been warned,' said Pedro.
'Still we must wait,' said Frank, with his stern look settling hard on his resolute face. 'It is in God's hand. Peradventure the gold was well gotten by this Treasurer, and it is not His will that we should take it from him.'