After about an hour he gave a low exclamation. “Hallo! Here they come — all four — prisoner still with his hands tied, stumbling along, poor thing.”
The four men passed some distance away. The children saw them well. They recognised the two men they knew, and Jack told them the fourth man was called Luis. The prisoner’s name he didn’t know. It was plain that the poor man was giddy with lack of food and drink.
“Now, you girls stay here, see?” said Jack. “At any rate, till we are well out of sight. Then go back to the waterfall, and keep somewhere about there, so that you don’t get lost. Take Kiki, Lucy-Ann. We don’t want her with us.”
Lucy-Ann took Kiki and held her ankles. Kiki gave such an angry squawk that the children looked uneasily after the four men to see if by any chance they had heard. But they hadn’t.
Jack and Philip made ready to set off. “I’ve got my field-glasses,” said Jack. “I can keep the men well in sight, whilst following quite a long way behind, so that they won’t spot us. Cheerio!”
The boys went off cautiously, keeping to every bit of cover they could. They could still see the men far away in the distance. “Do we need to mark the way we’re going?” asked Philip. “Or shall we be able to find the way back, do you think?”
“Better mark things where we can,” said Jack. “You never know. Mark rocks with white chalk. Here’s a bit. And trees we will notch.”
They went on, climbing upwards a good way behind the four men. Soon they came to a very steep place, difficult to keep their footing on, because the surface was so loose that they slid down continually.
“I hope they’ve undone that poor prisoner’s hands,” panted Jack. “I’d hate to do climbing like this and have my hands bound so that I couldn’t save myself when I slipped.”
When they came to the end of the rough piece, the men were nowhere to be seen. “Blow!” said Jack. “That bit held us up too long. Now we’ve lost them!”
He put his field-glasses to his eyes and swept the mountainside. Some way to the east and above them he suddenly saw four small figures. “There they are!” he said. “It’s all right. I can see them. That way, Tufty.”
On they went again, going more quickly now because the way was easier. They picked wild raspberries as they went, and once stopped for a drink at a little clear spring of water that gushed from under a rock.
They did not lose sight of the men again except for a moment or two. The men did not turn round, or use field-glasses at all. Plainly they did not expect anyone to follow them.
Now the boys came to a very desolate part of the mountainside. Big boulders had rolled down. Trees had been torn in half. Great ruts had been torn out of the earth and rock, and although the grass was growing everywhere to hide the scars, it was clear that some catastrophe had happened here.
“An avalanche, I should think,” said Jack. “I guess a terrific fall of snow happened here — bringing down with it boulders and rocks of all sizes — knocking down trees and scoring those ruts. Last winter, I should think.”
“Where are the men?” said Philip. “I can’t see them now. They went round that ledge.”
“Yes. We’ll have to be careful how we go round,” said Jack. “We might be easily seen coming round there. There’s not much cover in this devastated bit.”
So they went very cautiously round the ledge — and it was a good thing they did, for almost at once they heard voices and saw the four men.
Jack pressed Philip back. Just above the ledge was a bush. The boys climbed up to it, pressed against it, and parted the leaves so that they might see through. They found that they were looking down into a rocky gully.
Here, too, there had evidently been a great fall of rocks. In front of one heap stood the prisoner. His hands were now untied. He was pointing to the heap of rocks, and saying something in his rather dull, low voice. The guard translated, and Jack strained his ears to hear what he had to say.
“He says the entrance was here,” the guard said. The four men stared at the fall of rock.
“Exactly where?” said Juan impatiently, and glared at the prisoner. He pointed again, mumbling something.
“He says he didn’t know there had been a fall of rock here,” said the guard. “He says the entrance seems to be blocked up. But if you try to lift away some of these rocks, maybe you could find enough room to go in.”
Juan flew into a temper, but whether with the prisoner or the annoying fall of rocks it was difficult to say. He fell upon the boulders and began to drag at them feverishly, shouting to Luis and Pepi to help. The prisoner at first did nothing but sat down miserably on a rock. Juan shouted at him too, and he dragged himself up to help, though he was too weak to do anything in the way of lifting.
He pulled at a rock, staggered and fell. The others let him lie where he fell, and went on dragging at the great stones, panting and wiping the sweat from their foreheads.
The two boys watched them. It looked impossible, from where they were, to unblock any cave-entrance there. “Why,” whispered Jack to Philip, “there must have been hundreds of stones fallen there! They’ll never, never be able to shift them like that!”
Evidently the men thought so too, after a while, for they gave up pulling the boulders about and sat down to rest. The guard pointed to the fallen prisoner and spoke.
“What about him? How are we going to take him back?”
“Oh, give him some food and a drink,” growled Juan. “He’ll be all right then.”
“We’d better go now,” whispered Philip. “They’ll be starting back soon. Come on. How disappointing that we haven’t discovered anything, though! I did hope we might see something of the treasure.”
“If it’s hidden behind that wall of fallen stone it’ll need powerful machinery to get it out,” said Jack. “Nobody could move those bigger stones by hand. Come on, quickly.”
They set out on their way back, going as quickly as they could, glad that they had marked rocks and trees or they might have missed their way here and there.
The girls welcomed them, and poured questions on them. But the boys shook their heads most disappointingly.
“The treasure cave is blocked up,” said Jack. “I only hope the men don’t give up and leave this valley altogether. We’ll be properly stranded then.”
Chapter 16
RESCUE OF THE PRISONER
SOME while after Jack and Philip had got back to the cave, Lucy-Ann, who was looking out between the fern-fronds, gave a cry. “I say, there’s a man down there! — look, by the waterfall! Two men — no, three!”
Jack pulled the string which tied back the fronds and let them swing together to hide the cave. Then, parting the fronds carefully, he looked through.
“I might have guessed they would come back this way, to have another hunt for us here,” he said. “Blow them! One — two — three of them. Where’s the prisoner?”
“Fallen by the way, I should think, poor fellow,” said Philip, peering out too. “He looked terribly feeble.”
The children watched the three men eagerly to see what they meant to do. It was soon clear. Luis and Juan were to go back to their hut, but Pepi was to be left to keep watch on the waterfall, to see who went in and out, and to try and discover the way that was used. The children could not hear what was said, but it was all plain enough.
Luis and Juan departed. Where the prisoner was nobody could guess. Pepi sat down on a rock that overlooked the waterfall, just about the level of the ledge where the girls had stood the day before.
“Blow!” said Jack. “How can we get in and out without being seen? It’s true he’s got his back to us, but he might turn round at any time.”
Lucy-Ann began to worry about the prisoner. “Suppose he has fallen down on the way, and the men have left him there,” she said. “He’d die, wouldn’t he?”
“I suppose so,” said Jack, feeling anxious too.
“But, Jack, we can’t leave him to die,” said Lucy-Ann, her eyes big with horror. “You know we can’t. I shan’t rest till I know what’s happened to him.”
“I feel rather like that too,” said Jack, and the others nodded. “There was something awful about the hopeless way he sat. I’m sure he was ill.”