Still, it was a chance, and after he finished his first message he strove to get a grip on himself while he waited for a possible answer.
A click! There it was! And then a perfect delirium of delight swept through him as he spelled out the words:
“We got you, Phil. Thank God you’re still alive!”
There they were, his tried friends and comrades, Dick and Tom and Steve, alert, excited, “wild to be after you.” And the captain was there too, ready with his gallant Rangers to come to his help.
The reaction was so great from despair to hope that he almost lost control of himself. Then by a mighty effort he pulled himself together and continued the interchange of messages.
When these were finished he turned off the batteries and flung himself down and tried to sleep. But his brain was in a whirl and sleep was a long time in coming.
Radio! That blessed radio. The most wonderful thing in the world. Doc Denby had called it that one time, and Phil had rather felt inclined to smile at his enthusiasm. Now he was ready to agree with him.
He dropped off to sleep at last, a sleep filled with dreams, in which he seemed to hear the roar of the airplane and the thud of hoofs as the troop of Rangers rode to his rescue. But he heard screams too of tortured men driven over the precipice, he saw the ghoulish vultures tearing at their prey. And many times there rose before him the face of Espato with that livid scar on his forehead, his eyes gleaming with ferocity, his lips parted in a fiendish grin full of cruelty and menace.
It was late when he awoke from his feverish slumber and opened his eyes upon the day that was to be the most momentous in his life. What did that day hold in store for him? Would it see him restored to friends and freedom? Or would it mark the vanishing of his last hope?
Even if the Rangers came, he was still environed by hideous peril. At the first warning of attack, Espato would probably kill him instantly. Everything depended upon an absolute surprise.
Marked by alternate hopes and fears the day wore on. To Phil it had never seemed so long. He craved the coming of the night as men athirst in the desert crave water.
Dusk came at last and deepened into darkness.
Phil was waiting, every nerve strained to the highest point of tension, when the door opened to admit one of the brigands, who ordered him to follow him into the presence of Espato.