“Stop, the fellow is a Moor. Look at his black face and turban.”
“What of that?” returned the captain. “He must have seen what happened just now, and Moor or Christian he mustn’t have liberty to use his tongue again.”
The prisoner during this whispered conference, looked from one to the other, his oriental eyes dilated with fear, but making no effort to release his throat; he had evidently watched the approach of the fugitives in the hope they would pass by without noticing him. At the last words he eagerly stretched his mouth open with a wildly supplicating gesture.
“Santiago!” both exclaimed in a breath. The Moor’s tongue was shrunk to half the natural size, and it appeared evident he could not speak a word.
“He is worth his weight in silver,” Hilo said, looking at him narrowly. “I have heard the count had a mute slave, and I remember once seeing this man with him in the Portuguese camp. Let’s carry the fellow higher up the mountain and compel him to show us where his master is.”
The Moor’s turban served to bind his arms, and the three reascending the mountain a space, halted on the farther side of Angra, which town they passed so close as to hear the sound of trumpets from the market-place. The slave confessed by signs, he had come in search of food for Torrevedros, who, deserted by his courtiers, was hiding among the rocks.
“If that is the case,” Hilo remarked in French to the captain, “we may capture him ourselves.”
“And pocket all the doubloons the marquis will offer,” the captain added greedily.
The same motive for obedience which had drawn the acknowledgment of the viceroy’s destitution, a choice between that and a dagger stroke, induced the Moor to guide them in the direction of his master’s lodging, no doubt in the secret hope of wearying out his heavier-clad companions, and giving them the slip when opportunity offered. Up and down steeps they toiled most of the morning; the mist had disappeared and the sun beat fiercely on the rocks of the duro. The phlegmatic Wolfang followed with plodding endurance, as he would for a piece of gold to the world’s end, but Hilo’s impatience at last boiled over.
“Infidel dog!” he cried. “I will leave your carcass on this peak if you fail to lead us straight to the viceroy.”