Being detected, Suarez faltered no longer. A ship’s life-boat had been driven ashore lower down the coast. Fourteen men had landed; they were captured by the Indians, after a useless resistance, in which three were killed. The dead men supplied a ghoulish feast next day, and the others were bound securely, and placed in a cave, in order to be killed at intervals, an exact parallel to the fate of Suarez’s own companions five years earlier. But, on this occasion, a woman intervened. Suarez confessed, very reluctantly, that there was a girl in the tribe to whom he had taught some words of his own language. He said that she cooked for him, and caught fish or gathered shell-fish for their joint needs when the larder was otherwise empty. He declared that the relations between them were those of master and servant, but the poor creature had fallen in love with him, and had become nearly frantic with grief when he disappeared. It was difficult to analyze her motives, but she had undoubtedly freed the eleven sailors, and led them over the rocks at low water to the haunted cave on Guanaco Hill. The Indians dared not follow; but they took good care that no canoes were obtainable in which the unhappy fugitives could reach the ship, and they were confident that hunger would soon drive them forth. Courtenay’s brow became black with anger when he understood the significance of this staggering story. “It comes to this,” he said to Christobal. “The men who got away from the _Kansas_ in No. 3 life-boat fell into the hands of the savages early on the day of the ship’s arrival here. Suarez slipped his cable that night, being aware at the time that eleven white captives were still alive. Yet he said no word, not even when he heard that we had seen one of the boat’s water-casks in a canoe. He, a Christian, bolted and remained silent, while some poor creature of a woman risked her life, and ran counter to all her natural instincts, in the endeavor to save the men of his own race. What sort of mean hound can he be?” Suarez needed no translation to grasp the purport of Courtenay’s words. He besought the señor captain to have patience with him. He had escaped from a living tomb, and felt that he would yield up his life rather than return. Therefore, when he saw how few in number and badly armed were they on board the ship, he thought it best to remain silent as to the fate of the boat’s crew. In the first place, he fully expected that they had been killed by the Indians, who would be enraged by his own disappearance. Secondly, he alone knew how hopeless any attempt at a rescue must prove. Finally, he wished to spare the feelings of those who had befriended him; of what avail were useless mind-torturings regarding the hapless beings in the hands of the savages?