But instantly the Captain clapped a hand over his mouth. He raised the other in a gesture that Jack read instantly: “Silence!” Just ahead of them. Jack now perceived, the path broadened and emerged on a considerable clearing. The black outlines of several buildings, were scattered about this open space. From one of them hung a lantern, shedding a yellow patch of light all about it. This, evidently, was the light they had seen from above. As they stood, still as graven images in the protecting shadows of the forest, a stalwart figure, with a rifle over its shoulder, paced into the circle of light and then vanished again. “A sentry!” huskily breathed Captain Andrews. “If we thought we’d catch them napping we’ve been badly mistaken.” CHAPTER XVII—“DAD!—IT’S JACK!” Jack gave a step forward the better to survey the scene before them. As he did so his right foot struck something, and the next instant there was a sudden sharp jangling of a bell. In a flash he realized what had happened. A wire connected with the bell had been stretched across the path,—Herrera’s dead line. His forward step had given the alarm, and might prove their undoing and cause the total failure of their plans. Captain Andrews’ arm shot out and dragged the boy back into a clump of brush. He made Jack lie down flat, doing so himself. “The whole pack will be about our ears in a minute,” he whispered; but he did not reproach Jack, whose face was burning with humiliation. Sure enough, almost simultaneously there came from the direction of the houses and sheds an excited clamor of voices. Lights flashed and figures could be seen rushing about. Presently they gathered in a knot, and some one appeared to be giving directions; then they scattered in a fan-shaped formation, and moved toward the woods in which the two adventurers lay concealed. Jack’s heart beat like a trip hammer. Beside him he could hear Captain Andrews breathing heavily. Their discovery, within the next few minutes, appeared inevitable. Flashing their lanterns hither and thither the searching party, which they could now see was composed of negroes, from the Mosquito coast in all probability, advanced toward the jungle. There were a dozen or more of them, headed by the big fellow whom they had noticed on sentry duty. Almost all of them carried the universal weapon of the negro in the tropics, long, glittering-bladed machetes. Some of them took to the path by which Captain Andrews and Jack had reached their present position. Others plunged into the jungle, cutting away the thick growth with their steel blades. Their leader shouted something in Spanish. “He’s ordering them to search every inch of the jungle hereabouts,” interpreted Captain Andrews in a whisper. “The precious rascal! I’d like to have my hands on him.” “It wouldn’t do much good,” was the mournful response; “the odds against us are too heavy for us to do much in case of our discovery.”