Having purchased a monkey to keep him company during the voyage, he went on board, and the vessel sailed. He had a pleasant passage until they were within a day's sail of Panama, when he met with a sad mishap. He was sitting on deck, dandling his monkey on his knee, when a careless lubber let a pot containing red paint fall from the tops. The paint was spattered over M. T. Pate, who thought that it was his own blood and brains, and under this impression, supposing that he would have to give up the ghost, fainted away. But a bucket of salt-water being dashed in his face by an old tar, he revived, and, looking around, perceived that his monkey was dead. The pot had hit it on the head and killed it instantly. He mourned over his monkey until he reached Panama, where he rested a day, and then bought a mule and started across the Isthmus.
At a short distance from Cruces, in sight of the road, is a large ship's anchor lying in the wood. How it came there nobody can tell. Many suppose that it was conveyed from the Caribbean Sea up the Chagres River by Pizarro and his Spaniards, when they were proceeding to Panama to construct vessels for the conquest of Peru; and that being unable to transport it any farther by land, they had left it lying in the forest.
Pate tied his mule to a tree, and, walking aside from the road, seated himself on the anchor and began to meditate.
"Here," said he, in a soliloquy, "once stood Pizarro the Conqueror. No daring robber, animated by the sordid love of gold, was that great man. He came to destroy the pagan superstitions of a benighted land, and to extend the blessings of civilization over an entire continent."
As Pate uttered these words, his guardian angel, who was anxiously hovering over him, wanted to warn him of his danger, but was unable to do so. A man of savage aspect had crept from a thicket in his rear, and, with a catlike step, was cautiously advancing, having a heavy club raised in readiness to strike.
"In those days," said Pate, "all was darkness and barbarism; but now, the benign influences of——"
The club descended. Pate beheld a whole constellation, and several planets at mid-day, and sank senseless to the earth.
When Pate opened his eyes it was late in the afternoon. Flocks of parrots were fluttering around him, and multitudes of monkeys were chattering and nimbly leaping among the boughs of the trees. He arose from the greensward with a bad headache, and discovered that he had been robbed. His money was gone, and his mule had disappeared. Without a dollar, he was in a strange land and thousands of miles from home. He staggered on until he reached Cruces, where he entered a public house kept by an American, to whom he related his misfortunes.
The man had just lost his bar-keeper, and employed M. T. Pate to wait upon his customers until he could earn money enough to pay his passage to the United States. And here he was found by Wiggins and his companions washing a bottle.