“If you will do this, I promise to pay you the sum, in gold, that I mentioned when talking to you in the harbor at Belize. Furthermore, in the event that General Pitou’s uprising is successful, and we make him dictator of the country, you and your friends will share liberally in the division of the spoils. What do you say? You are young men—mere youths, in fact—and such a golden prospect ought to appeal to you.”
Bob stared at the don. “And you,” he breathed, “are the Spanish consul at Belize! What would happen to you if they knew, in Spain, how you are meddling with the affairs of a country with which your own is at peace?”
“I might just as well puncture that bubble here and now,” returned the don, with a laugh. “I am not Don Ramon Ortega, the Spanish consul, but Don Carlos Valdez, the revolutionist.”
Bob started back. “Don Carlos Valdez!” he exclaimed. “We heard about you in Belize, Don Carlos.”
“And what do they say about me in Belize?”
“Why, that you’re the greatest rascal unhung!”
“They say more than that,” added Speake wrathfully, “and that you’ll be hung, one o’ these fine days.”
Speake was chagrined and spiteful because of the way he and his mates had been taken in by the plausible revolutionist at the start-off. He saw, now, how farsighted Bob Steele was in refusing to have anything to do with the don.
Carlos Valdez smiled ironically. “What they say doesn’t make any material difference,” he answered. “I have been in Belize for a week. I walked the streets openly, and no one dared to molest me. Why, I even went to the Spanish consul and asked for a passport. While he was preparing to make it out, I felled him with a blow and left him bound and gagged in his own sitting room. I had to do that, you see, before I dared to call on you, Bob Steele, and impersonate him.”
“At any rate,” said Bob Steele, “I am glad of one thing.”