Uncle Brian shook his head.
"Wait," he whispered.
Peter felt positively mutinous. To remain inactive was to throw away their only chance of scoring heavily off their pursuers.
"Why?" he demanded in a low voice.
"They're going to search for us," was the reply.
Brian Strong had the Rioguayan airmen's own words to support his statement, for amid the babel he managed to overhear one of the men declare that the Englishmen must be found, and taken prisoners. These were the Comandante's explicit instructions.
There were now eight of the crew on the beach, all of them arguing with each other and paying scant heed to the excited shouts of an officer in the pilot's seat of the flying-boat. At length two of the crew went on board, reappearing with a long, scraggy dog, whose chief points were his long drooping ears and lolling tongue. Brian Strong recognized the breed as a cross between a Cuban bloodhound and a Brazilian whippet. The dog was carried ashore in spite of its weight, the apparent reason being that for the purpose for which it was intended it must not walk through water.
At the sight of the hound Brian felt more ill at ease than he had since the appearance of the flying-boat. He knew the ferociousness of the breed and their skill in following the trail of a fugitive. He almost wished he had fallen in with his nephew's unspoken suggestion and had tried the moral and physical effect of a sudden and unexpected burst of automatic pistol firing.
It was too late for that now. The opportunity had passed, for already some of the men were screened by the intervening wall of rock.
So Brian watched the movements of the two men with the dog, noting with considerable apprehension that both fellows, in addition to their firearms, carried a supply of hand-grenades, which might or might not be smoke bombs.