guarded … all they have gained by the detour is avoiding Chorillos…. Perhaps they are making for Canete…. Well, they must stop somewhere, and then we have them!"
After an hour's rest, they hurried on again at top speed, one of the soldiers giving his dismounted comrade a lift behind.
"Did you, then, ever think that we might not catch them?" asked Uncle Francis of Natividad, with an enigmatical smile.
"Why not, señor?… Between you and me, it is about time we did catch them.… I for one shall not feel happy if Señorita de la Torre and the boy are still in their hands on the last day of the Interaymi."
"Do you mean that the boy is in danger?"
"Speak lower, señor, speak lower…. Nothing is too young, too beautiful or too innocent for the Sun. Do you understand?"
"More or less. More or less."
"You people do not know what horrors they are capable of.… They still have their priests.… You might blink at facts if it were only the ordinary Red Ponchos, but there are also those three monsters.… You always find them together in the old burial-grounds…. When one dies, the other two are put to death.… Or when a king died, they sacrificed themselves on his tomb…. They still exist, those monsters,
