The dawn stole upon them. They all presented a sorry and woe-begone appearance, none more than General Carabaño. When captured he was wearing a long flowered dressing-gown, the colours of which had "run" through his immersion in the lake. He had lost the well-fed and arrogant look which he habitually wore. He made no further protest, but accepted in sullen silence the meagre portion of food allotted to him, and meekly allowed his arms to be rebound when the brief meal was finished.
Will and Ruggles lost no time in making an examination of the hydroplane. They found that a sharp branch of a submerged tree had penetrated the bottom and pierced the petrol-tank, where it had snapped off. The pressure which usually fed the petrol up to the engine had forced it out of the tank, and Will realized with despair that the hydroplane was now of no more use to them than a raft. All the petrol that was left was about a gallon in one of the cans.
"We are clean done, Ruggles," he said. "There's not the ghost of a chance of our getting to Bolivar."
"Except at three miles an hour," said Ruggles.
"With the river closely watched, as it will be, we can't even drift down. Espejo will know we can't have passed. No one but a madman would attempt to go at any pace in the dark, and then he'd come to grief. I was a fool not to take your advice."
"It's no good crying over spilt milk, as the Chief would say. I can manage to patch up the hole, if that's any good."
"Well, it would keep the thing afloat, but that won't help us much. Without petrol we're stuck."
"Not a cupful. I brought away the last cans before I went down to Bolivar."
"This is a real fix. That Espejo fellow will begin to search the river when he finds we don't pass; he can easily get canoes from some of the natives down the Orinoco. He's bound to find us if we're still on the river, and then with only two revolvers and a couple of knives between us we shall be at his mercy. Seems to me, as soon as I've patched up the hole, we'd better pole up the river and go straight on instead of turning up the stream towards the hacienda. They might not look for us there."
"There seems nothing else. But it'll take a week to get so far. We've got the current against us, and with our load we should do about one mile an hour. Besides, what's to happen then? They can search for us and keep a watch on the river for any length of time, and our food won't last more than two days on the shortest commons, and precious stale it will be, too."