“A few days ago a countryman of mine sent word that he was about to die. He asked that I, his early friend, should come to him immediately and receive news of utmost importance. He was lying sick in the hotel of a small city in Wisconsin. He was a tobacco agent and he had been attacked by Death while he was on a business trip.
“Filled with the heartbroken hope to see him once more before he died, I went even as I was, to a train and made all haste to his bedside.”
“What was his name?” asked Orme.
“Lopez,” replied Senhor Poritol promptly; and Orme knew that the answer might as well have been Smith. But the little man returned quickly to his story.
“My friend had no strength left. He was, oh, so weak that I wept to see him. But he sent the doctor and the priest out of the room, and then—and then he whispered in my ear a secret. He had discovered rich gold in the Urinaba country. He had been trying to earn money to go back and dig up the gold. But, alas! now he was dying, and he wished to give the secret to me, his old friend.
“Tears streamed on my cheek.” Senhor Poritol’s eyes filled, seemingly at the remembrance. “But I took out my fountain-pen to write down the directions he wished to give. See—this was the pen.” He produced a gold-mounted tube from his waistcoat.
“I searched my pockets for a piece of paper. None could I discover. There was no time to be lost, for my friend was growing weaker, oh, very fast. In desperation I took a five-dollar bill, and wrote upon it the directions he gave me for finding the gold. Even as I finished it, dear Lopez breathed his last breath.”
Orme puffed at his cigar. “So the bill carries directions for finding a rich deposit in the Urinaba Mountains?”
“Yes, my dear sir. But you would not rob me of it. You could not understand the directions.”
“Oh, no.” Orme laughed. “I have no interest in South American gold mines.”