At this the latter chuckled with delight, evidently believing that the blood-thirsty Americano was about to hew his victim in pieces, an operation that, to him, would be vastly more entertaining than a mere shooting. Then he stared in bewilderment; for, instead of cutting the prisoner down, Ridge began to sever the lashings by which he was bound. As the keen-edged machete cut through the last of these, the released man fell forward in a faint, and the young American, catching him in his arms, laid him on the sward. "Bring water!" he ordered, with a sharp tone of authority, and the negro obeyed. "You no kill him?" he asked, as he watched Ridge bathe the blood from the unconscious man's face. "Not now," was the evasive answer. "Where did you get him?" Little by little, one word at a time, he gained from the taciturn negro an idea of what had taken place while he slept. It seemed that, while he had followed rough mountain trails in his roundabout course to and from the refugee camp, there was a much better road to which they had closely approached, when he was forced by exhaustion to call a halt. After he fell asleep, Dionysio, going for water to a spring that he knew of, had detected a sound of hoof-beats advancing along this road from the direction of Holguin. Concealing himself near the spring, he waited until the horseman, a Spanish officer, rode up to it. Then he leaped upon the man, dragged him to the ground, and had him secured almost before the astonished officer knew what was happening. He was also dazed by a wound in the head received as he was hurled from his horse. Dionysio was on the point of killing him, as he had many a Spaniard, but reflecting that the Americano whom he was guiding would doubtless enjoy that pleasure, he generously decided to yield it to him and reserve the victim until Ridge should finish his nap. So, after gagging the Spaniard, that he might not disturb him who slept, Dionysio flung him across his shoulder and carried him to camp. There he secured him to a tree so that Ridge might see him upon awakening, and then calmly resumed his duties as camp cook and sentry. The unfortunate prisoner, wounded, bound, and powerless to move or speak, tormented by heat and insects, and parched by a burning thirst, had thus suffered for hours, while the young American who was to kill him slept close at hand, blissfully unaware of his presence.