“‘Don Camillo de Fereda.’”
“It’s the one thing we needed to complete our case.”
It was Bee who shattered the hush that had fallen upon the group.
“Yes. We know now that Don Camillo de Fereda was really a pirate. That he commanded the galleon that finished the Dragon. We know what happened to Sir John Holden and his men and how the book came into the possession of the Feredas,” enumerated Patsy. “The letter and the book have been handed down from generation to generation because none of the Feredas ever found the treasure of Las Golondrinas.”
“That was because of the wickedness of Don Camillo de Fereda,” asserted Dolores. “It was not intended that either he or any of this family should find. Because of it old Manuel died bitter and without faith. To Rosita it brought the madness. I believe that it has the curse laid upon it.”
CHAPTER XXVI
“THE TRUE SIGN OF THE ‘DRAGON’”
The story of the treasure of Las Golondrinas was not to be thus easily dismissed from the minds of the Wayfarers. Quite the contrary, it became paramount as a topic of conversation. The journal of the unfortunate Englishman, Sir John Holden, and the letter written by Don Camillo de Fereda were duly exhibited to and read by Miss Martha and Mr. Carroll.
Though both were considerably impressed by the girls’ find neither was in sympathy with Patsy’s half-jesting, half-earnest assertion: “It would be fun to poke around in the woods a little and hunt for the treasure, if we had the least bit of an idea what ‘the sign of the Dragon’ was.”