Phil smiled deliciously.
“That was planned telepathically between the señorita and me,” he replied. “She purposely sat in front of Salas and I was placed behind him; reason one. She knew that I knew if Salas remained in that canoe we would all be made prisoners, and as Espinosa would be our jailer—well! The crocodile was sent by a kind Providence, but if not one way it would have been another. The idea occurred to me and I firmly believe that she divined what I was about to do, for did you see her spin the canoe about so as to get out of the colonel’s reach when he was sent floundering in the water? She first induced him against his caution and better judgment to trust himself alone with us in one canoe.”
“But why didn’t he disarm us?” Sydney questioned perplexedly.
“I dare say he wonders why he didn’t too, by now,” Phil laughed. “Maria threw him quite off the scent, apparently. These brown fellows are very keen on dramatic scenes, and he doubtless thought it would be a fine situation to spring the fact that we were prisoners when we had arrived in Espinosa’s presence.”
The guide Lopez rode silently at their side. The lads were too much occupied to give him more than a passing thought until the road emerged from the woods of the valley and wound gradually around a hill which was half-way between Rodriguez’s ranch and Palilo. Their conversation had flagged; for the first time they realized that they needed sleep. After their hard ride they felt tired and stiff. By mutual consent they stopped on the crest of the hill. Phil took out his watch and held it up to the moon’s rays.
“Two o’clock!” he exclaimed. “Not much sleep for us to-night.” Then a look in Lopez’s face caused him alarm. He saw the native, eyes intent on the horizon from which they had come and his hands pressing forward his ears, apparently trying to intercept a sound which he had either heard or imagined.
Phil was about to ask an eager question but before he could speak he was answered by a distant rumble from the direction of the ranch. Again and again the slight sound trembled on the still night. Like statues silhouetted against the sky, for a second or more the three men sat transfixed with apprehension. Then as one man they whirled their horses about and galloped madly back over the road in the direction from which they had come. That far-distant sound could have but one interpretation;—the Rodriguez ranch was being attacked, and they might be needed.
CHAPTER XV
A NIGHT OF ALARM
After the midshipmen had ridden away Maria returned to the large living-room to bid her father good-night. A new pleasure had come into her life, and what was more natural than that she should wish to share it with him? These frank, young Americans had proved themselves to be of a quality which she had not thought existed outside of the story-books of her childhood. She believed that in their friendship her father’s difficulties would melt away. Juan Rodriguez, interested as he had always been in the political trials of his country together with the management of his vast estates, from which he had reaped great riches, like most Filipinos of the upper class, had treated his only daughter more as a heaven-sent treasure rather than as a daughter to confide in and in whom to seek womanly sympathy in his perplexities. Her principal care had been for her brother, Juan, the pride of the old man’s life. Upon this seven-year-old boy the greater part of his affection was centred. Maria was not at all sleepy, and, seeing a light in her father’s bedroom, she slipped in quietly to pour out her heart to the stern but kindly parent.
On the threshold she stopped in startled amazement. Her slippered feet had made no sound and the door as she pushed it open caused him to glance up in annoyed surprise. She saw her father on his knees in the corner before several heavy iron-bound chests, and their opened covers displayed to her anxious eyes a great wealth of gold and silver coins. More money than her young imagination had ever dreamed of.