"Do not hesitate," Don Sagasta said, "to let me know if I can, at any time, do or send anything for you. Should it be possible, I will send a message to you, by the old woman, if any expedition on a grand scale is being got up against the runaways; and this may make your position more comfortable among them." Under the guidance of David, they then started for the Indian woman's hut; while Flora set to work to carry away and obliterate all signs, from the hut, of its late residents. After a few minutes' walking, the boys arrived at the Indian hut. It was constructed simply, of boughs of trees thickly worked together. On hearing their footsteps an old woman--the boys thought they had never seen anyone so old--with long white hair, and a face wrinkled till it hardly seemed like the face of a human being, came to the door, with a torch made of resinous wood held aloft. She peered under her hand at the boys, and said a few words to David, which he translated to the boys to be: "And these are English, the people of whom the Spaniards are as afraid as my people are of them? Two Spaniards can drive fifty Indians before them, but I hear that a dozen of these Englishmen can take a ship with a hundred Spaniards on board. It is wonderful. They look something like our oppressors, but they are fairer, and their eyes are blue; and they look honest, and have not that air of pride, and arrogance, which the Spaniard never lays aside. "I have a boy here." And as she spoke an Indian boy, of some thirteen years of age, slipped out from behind her. "He will show them to the refuge places of the last of my race. There they will be well received, for I have sent by him a message to their chiefs; and it may be that these lads, knowing the ways of white warfare, will be able to assist my countrymen, and to enable them to resist these dogs of Spaniards. "The blessing of an old woman be upon you. I have seen many changes. I have seen my people possessors of this island, save a small settlement which they had, even then, the folly to allow the Spaniards to possess. I have seen them swept away by the oppressor, my husband tortured and killed, my brothers burned alive, all that I loved slain by the Spaniards. Now, it does my old eyes good to see two of the race who will, in the future, drive those dogs from these fair lands, as they have driven my people." So saying, she returned into the hut. The boy prepared at once to start, and the lads, wringing the hand of the black who had been so kind to them, at once followed their guide into the darkness. For some hours they walked without intermission, sometimes going at a sling trot, and then easing down again. Dark as was the night, their guide trod the paths without hesitation or pause. The boys could scarce see the ground upon which they trod, but the eyes of the native were keener than theirs, and to him the way seemed as clear as in broad daylight.