nearly eight
o'clock at night
First of all , to make everything quite sure , they sent a messenger on to the next village , some fifteen miles up the river , to inform the cacique of the presence of the two white men in the neighbourhood , and to request that a watch for them should be kept , with a view to their capture . They requested further , that in the event of the white men being captured , they should be sent back down the river to pay the penalty for having caused the death of seventeen Mayubuna Indians . Then , having by this means ensured the capture of the fugitives , in the event of their succeeding by any chance in forcing their way up the river in the darkness , they launched and manned four canoes , each containing ten men , and these four canoes , spreading themselves right across the river , so that nothing could possibly pass downstream undetected , proceeded to make their way cautiously up the river to the spot where they knew it was morally certain that the white men must and would land . It was nearly eight o'clock at night when the four canoes arrived at the spot for which they were bound , and it was then of course much too dark for them to see anything . They therefore troubled themselves not at all to search for signs of the white men 's presence , but assumed that they were there somewhere , and at once , with infinite precaution , proceeded to surround the open plateau , cunningly concealing themselves in the long grass . Half a dozen of them lay immediately beneath the overhanging branches of the ceiba tree ; but they arrived there so silently that , even if Dick and Phil had been awake , they would have heard nothing . Now , there is probably no creature in this world of ours more vindictive than an angry Indian ; and these particular Mayubuna Indians considered that they had ample cause for their anger against the two white men whom they were taking so much trouble to capture ; for had not those same white men been directly responsible for the loss of seventeen male Mayubuna lives ?