“He wouldn’t do that, I’m sure. I like the fellow. Of course you read a lot about oriental duplicity, but I don’t believe Abdul is a rogue. Anyway, we should have time to get away in the airship before any one could molest us here, and he knows that. For the life of me I don’t know what we can do if he _has_ been collared. We can’t do a thing until we know where Ingleton is; we certainly can’t go inquiring ourselves. All we can do is to go back to the yacht and try and pick up some English-speaking native who can tell us what we want to know, and that means loss of time.” “And more than that; it would mean that I’d have to turn into M’Cracken again, and I don’t believe I could keep up the disguise any longer. I say, what’s that moving down there?” They seized their field-glasses and turned them towards a patch moving along the outskirts of a wood some miles away. “Moors, by Jove!” exclaimed Oliphant. “And mounted. And coming this way. It looks as though Abdul had betrayed us, after all.” “Don’t be in a hurry. They’re making no attempt to mask their approach. I don’t believe they’re coming here at all. No; see, they are wheeling off to the right, in the direction of the hill village yonder. We needn’t worry ourselves. But I’m getting sick of this, and it’ll be serious soon. I only brought three days’ grub in the car, and I’m afraid we ate more than we ought yesterday. That’s the worst of having nothing to do.” “It’s so plaguy hot, too, when the sun’s up. For two pins I’d go down and have a shot at something in the woods. No doubt it’s cooler down there, and there’s no fun in lying about up here to frizzle.” “There’d certainly be no fun in being pitched into a Moorish dungeon. By all accounts they’re rather horrible. I think I’d rather frizzle here than stew there. In any case, even supposing the Moors didn’t find out who was firing, the shots would put them on their guard and perhaps spoil our game. I say, Oliphant, reel off some of your stories.” But even Oliphant’s stories in the Doric palled, and by and by Tom got up and said that he was going for a stroll. He was away for nearly an hour, and Oliphant began to feel uneasy at his prolonged absence. Oliphant dared not call, for fear of being overheard by an enemy; nor did he care to explore. But he was making up his mind to follow Tom down the steep path when the wanderer at last returned. “Rather interesting spot, this,” he said. “Round the corner below there I came upon some caves.” “I wondered what had become of you. Did you get lost?” “No. The odd thing is that these caves are up about twenty feet from a ridge of rock, and can’t be got at without a ladder. I tried to mount, but the wall is almost flat.” “I’ll go and have a look. How do you get there?” “Down the hill a little way, turn to the right, go along the ridge, and look up. The caves are about halfway between the ridge and the top of the hill.”