"He came very early this morning," answered Ysabel, "before the general's plans had been carried out."
"Mr. Coleman is with the insurgents?" asked Matt.
"He has been with them for a long time."
"Is he well treated?"
"As well as he can be. The rebels are half starved, but Mr. Coleman shares their rations with them."
"Where is he kept?"
"In a tent in the middle of the encampment. He is constantly under guard, but, while I was in the camp, I was able to talk with him. We were the only ones who could speak English, and the soldiers were not able to understand us. I told Mr. Coleman that I was going to run away, and he said it was the best thing I could do. He asked me, before I left, to take a letter from him to the customs officer at Port Livingstone. But he wasn't able to write the letter before Pedro helped me get away."
Here was great news, but not wholly satisfactory. The captured consul was alive and well cared for; but he was also well guarded in the heart of the insurgents' camp.
"That puts me in a blue funk," muttered Dick. "I wouldn't give a hap'orth for our chances of doing anything for Coleman. If we get away from here ourselves, we'll be doing well. And then, too, what's become of Jordan, Speake and Tirzal? I hate to make a guess, for it fair dashes me."
Matt was also very much alarmed on account of their missing companions; in some way, however, he hoped through Ysabel Sixty to be able to accomplish something—if not for Coleman, then at least for Jordan and the two with him.