At a spot among the trees, situated about a hundred yards from where the captain had been standing, the little party came to the place where a dozen pack mules had been tethered; and a brief search among the heterogeneous articles which comprised the packs furnished the sergeant with a raw-hide rope, from which he cut off a couple of lengths sufficient to securely bind the hands of Phil and Dick firmly behind their backs, and this operation was at once so effectually performed that anything in the nature of escape by simply breaking away and running for one's life was rendered impossible, quite apart from the sinister and significant order to shoot which had been given to the soldiers. A quarter of an hour later the entire party were on the move, and the two Englishmen had the mortification of finding themselves marched back along the road by which they had come. Shortly after passing the spot where our friends had struck the road, the path--for it was little more--curved away toward the left, and led along the top of an extensive plateau of rich pasture land, upon which, about midday, they sighted the first herd of cattle that the Englishmen had seen since their escape from the Mayubuna; and during the afternoon they saw other herds in the charge of peons, showing that the party were gradually approaching civilised territory; and about half an hour before sunset they marched into a small village, composed chiefly of adobe huts, where a halt was called for the night, and where our friends were confined in a ramshackle barn of a place in company with the sergeant and ten men. That the sergeant was quite determined not to get into trouble by the neglect of any possible precaution soon became perfectly evident; for when, about half an hour after the arrival of the party at the village, supper was served, the individual in question gave orders that before the hands of the prisoners were released to enable them to convey food to their mouths, their ankles were to be securely bound together; and this was done. Then, after supper was over, without unbinding the ankles of the prisoners their wrists were again bound together behind their backs, after which their ankles and wrists were drawn as closely together as they could be induced to come, and firmly lashed behind them; and in this constrained and exceedingly painful posture they were unceremoniously flung into opposite corners of the hut, where, upon the bare floor, and suffering torments from the vermin with which the place was infested, and from which, in their constrained position, they were helpless to defend themselves, they were left to pass the night as best they might.