"Look, señor," she whispered—"behind you!"
The Mexican in his eagerness was off his guard. He turned to look, and at that instant the girl drew back her sturdy arm and then brought it forward again with all her vigour. Cluk! She heard the rock sound against her oppressor's head, heard a low moan escape his lips, and saw him sink slowly to the floor at her feet.
The next instant she was beside him, in terror lest she had killed him; but a hurried glance, supplemented by her fingers which reached for his pulse, assured her that she had only stunned her assailant. Her heart beat less rapidly now, and she again had control of her mental processes. With deft hands that worked speedily in the darkness she unstrapped from around his waist the belt with its thirty-six cartridges and revolver, then pulled from his pocket the keys, not only to her cell, but, she judged, to others.
The feel of their bronze coldness in her hot hands brought a quick message to her brain; beyond a question of doubt, the missing Cavendish was concealed in one of the dark, dank cells in the immediate vicinage, if not actually in this same passage, then in another one perhaps not greatly distant. The speculation gave her determination and decision.
Reaching beneath her outer skirt, she jerked loose her white petticoat, and then began tearing it into long strips which she knotted together. This done, she bound Juan Cateras's hand and foot, and, with some difficulty, turned him over on his face after first thrusting into his half-open mouth a gag, which she had fashioned from stray ends of the providential petticoat.
Then leaping to her feet and strapping the ammunition belt and revolver about her waist, she stole on tiptoe to the doorway and peered out; the silent, cavernous passage was empty.
Lithely, like a young panther, she slipped out of the cell and began making down the passageway to a spot of light which she judged to be its opening. She had scarcely gone ten feet, however, before she stopped short—somewhere in the dark she heard a voice.
Flattening herself against the sides of the passage, she thought quickly; to return to the cell in which lay Juan Cateras would be unwise, for he might break the bonds, which were none too strong, and, in his fury at having been so easily duped, subject her to unknown but anyway horrible indignities, if not death itself. But what other course was there?
As she stood there a fraction of a second against the wall, knowing not which way to turn, the girl wished with all her heart that big Jim Westcott, strong, cool, collected, the master of any situation requiring force, tact, and acumen, were there by her side to take her arm and guide her out of this terrible predicament. But Jim was elsewhere—where, she could hardly guess.
What was to be done? Her temples throbbed as the voices sounded nearer. Then it came home to her—why not try one of the other cells? Possibly she would be lucky enough to find an empty one; the chances were, she felt, that most of them were.