"Dias is waiting there. Will you come down?" the latter said. "You were sleeping like a top; I had to pull at your leg three times before you woke."
"I am coming," Harry said as he crawled out. "I feel more sleepy than when I lay down, and will just run down to the stream and sluice my head, that will wake me up in earnest, for the water is almost as cold as ice."
When he came back he was joined by Donna Maria, and, taking both his shot-gun and rifle, he went forward with her to the barricade.
"So you have neither seen nor heard anything, Dias?"
"I have had a good sleep, Dias; we will watch for the next four hours. It is eleven o'clock now, so you will be able at three to take it on till daylight."
"I will send and call you again an hour before that," Dias said. "If they attack, as I expect they will as soon as the dawn breaks, we had better have our whole force ready to meet them."
"This is scarcely woman's work, Donna Maria."
"It is woman's work to help defend her life, señor, as long as she can. If I found that the savages were beating us I should stab myself. They would kill you, but they might carry me away with them, which would be a thousand times worse than death."
"I don't think there is any fear of their beating us," Harry said; "certainly not here. We ought properly to be one on each side, but really I shirk the thought of wading through the river waist-deep at that shallow place we found a hundred yards up; it would be bad enough to go through it, worse still to lie for four hours in wet clothes."
"Besides, we could not talk then, señor," Maria said with a little laugh, "and that would be very dull."
"Very dull. Even now we must only talk occasionally; we shall have to keep our eyes and ears open."
"I don't think either of them will be much good," she said; "I can see the white water but nothing else, and I am sure I could not hear a naked footstep on the rocks."
"It is a good thing the water is white, because we can make out the rocks that rise above the surface. When our eyes get quite accustomed to the dark we should certainly be able to see any figures stepping upon them or wading in the water."
"I could see that now, señor. I think it will be of advantage to talk, for I am sure if I were to lie with my eyes straining, and thinking of nothing else, they would soon begin to close."