Jack gave a step forward the better to survey the scene before them. As he did so his right foot struck something, and the next instant there was a sudden sharp jangling of a bell.
In a flash he realized what had happened. A wire connected with the bell had been stretched across the path,—Herrera’s dead line. His forward step had given the alarm, and might prove their undoing and cause the total failure of their plans. Captain Andrews’ arm shot out and dragged the boy back into a clump of brush. He made Jack lie down flat, doing so himself.
“The whole pack will be about our ears in a minute,” he whispered; but he did not reproach Jack, whose face was burning with humiliation.
Sure enough, almost simultaneously there came from the direction of the houses and sheds an excited clamor of voices. Lights flashed and figures could be seen rushing about. Presently they gathered in a knot, and some one appeared to be giving directions; then they scattered in a fan-shaped formation, and moved toward the woods in which the two adventurers lay concealed.
Jack’s heart beat like a trip hammer. Beside him he could hear Captain Andrews breathing heavily. Their discovery, within the next few minutes, appeared inevitable. Flashing their lanterns hither and thither the searching party, which they could now see was composed of negroes, from the Mosquito coast in all probability, advanced toward the jungle.
There were a dozen or more of them, headed by the big fellow whom they had noticed on sentry duty. Almost all of them carried the universal weapon of the negro in the tropics, long, glittering-bladed machetes. Some of them took to the path by which Captain Andrews and Jack had reached their present position. Others plunged into the jungle, cutting away the thick growth with their steel blades.
Their leader shouted something in Spanish. “He’s ordering them to search every inch of the jungle hereabouts,” interpreted Captain Andrews in a whisper. “The precious rascal! I’d like to have my hands on him.”
“It wouldn’t do much good,” was the mournful response; “the odds against us are too heavy for us to do much in case of our discovery.”
“Well, we’ve got the gas-guns, and from what I’ve already seen of them I reckon that they may prove mighty useful in a few minutes.”
As he spoke there came a crashing sound in the undergrowth a few feet from them. The next moment they saw the form of a giant black looming up directly in front of them. The fellow was grunting from his exertions in cutting his way through the underwood, and paused for an instant to catch his breath.