The general smiled.
"I have thought no more of it. Have a cigar. You'll find them good. They taste better perhaps to me," he added, with a laugh, "because the tobacco was grown by a Spaniard, one of our bitterest enemies, and they cost nothing."
The time seemed long. In reality the men—or at least two of them—were back in an incredibly short space of time.
"Well?" questioned the general.
"We have been there."
"And your comrades?"
"They are safe. We left them behind."
"And this young man's story?"
"Quite true, general, only he forgot to say that he had left two prisoners in the hut."
"Two!"