wrong he knows what will happen to him."

"And Los Bocos--it is a village, isn't it, and the landing must be in
sight of the Custom-house?"

"The village lies some distance back from the shore, and the only house
on the beach is the Custom-house itself; but every one will be asleep
by the time we get there, and it will take us only a minute to hand her
into the launch. If there should be a guard there, King will have
fixed them one way or another by the time we arrive. Anyhow, there is
no need of looking for trouble that far ahead. There is enough to
worry about in between. We haven't got there yet."

The moon rose grandly a few minutes later, and flooded the forest with
light so that the open places were as clear as day. It threw strange
shadows across the trail, and turned the rocks and fallen trees into
figures of men crouching or standing upright with uplifted arms. They
were so like to them that Clay and Langham flung their carbines to
their shoulders again and again, and pointed them at some black object
that turned as they advanced into wood or stone. From the forest they
came to little streams and broad shallow rivers where the rocks in the
fording places churned the water into white masses of foam, and the
horses kicked up showers of spray as they made their way, slipping and
stumbling, against the current. It was a silent pilgrim age, and never
for a moment did the strain slacken or the men draw rein. Sometimes,
as they hurried across a broad tableland, or skirted the edge of a
precipice and looked down hundreds of feet below at the shining waters
they had just forded, or up at the rocky points of the mountains before
them, the beauty of the night overcame them and made them forget the
significance of their journey.

They were not always alone, for they passed at intervals through
sleeping villages of mud huts with thatched roofs, where the dogs ran
yelping out to bark at them, and where the pine-knots, blazing on the
clay ovens, burned cheerily in the moonlight. In the low lands where
the fever lay, the mist rose above the level of their heads and
enshrouded them in a curtain of fog, and the dew fell heavily,
penetrating their clothing and chilling their heated bodies so that the
sweating horses moved in a lather of steam.

They had settled down into a steady gallop now, and ten or fifteen
miles had been left behind them.

"We are making excellent time," said Clay. "The village of San Lorenz