“Three figures,” whispered Donald, “but I can’t make out who they are. I wish we could pull out these iron bars!”
He seized the grating and pulled with all his might, but the bars refused to yield.
“If we only had a crowbar!” he exclaimed.
“Beat them down,” came a voice from below.
Donald started back in surprise for just a moment, then put his face close to the bars and whispered back:
“Beat the bars down! They are only held in their place by a frame which must be rotten.”
Donald repeated the instructions to the others.
“We haven’t anything to beat them in with,” replied Adrian. “Who is it talking—Billie?”
“I don’t know who it is,” replied Donald. “Sounds like a woman’s voice. Can’t somebody find a big stone?”
“Plenty,” said Don Antonio. “Here, _hombres_,” to the peons, “bring one of those big stones yonder.”
The men hastened to obey, and, with the stone for a sledge hammer, Donald quickly knocked out the iron bars, which fell noisily to the floor below.
The opening thus made enabled him to get his head in sufficiently to have seen the interior of the room, had it not been that he shut off his own light; but it was not necessary for him to see what was going on, for this time Billie was out of bed and talking to him.
“No, it’s Don. How are you, Billie? All right?”
“All except a little weakness in my legs and a bit of dizziness in my head.”
“I don’t know his other name, but he’s all right. He’s looking out for us.”
“Sure. What do you suppose I’m doing here—taking a vacation?”
Donald could not help laughing at Billie’s characteristic reply, in spite of the seriousness of the situation, as he turned from the window to repeat his conversation to his companions.
“What had we better do?” he finally asked.
“Is your friend armed?” asked the captain.
Donald put the question to Billie and received a negative reply.
“Suppose you hand him your rifle and then find out just how things are in the room below.”
“Here, Billie,” called Don, “you take my Marlin and defend yourself to the last. How are things fixed down there?”
“Santiago can tell you better than I,” was the response. Whereupon Santiago explained to Donald the exact condition in the cave.
It appears that when the men who had captured Guadalupe took her before Don Rafael, he was filled with joy, and ordered that she should be kept with the greatest care.