"They have done no wrong?" the leader demanded. "No; they have done no wrong," Francis assured him. "Then it is well. I promise you to find them immediately, for we know the direction of their wandering, and to send them down to the coast to join you."
"And in the meantime shall you be my guests while you wait," the haciendado invited eagerly. "There is a freight schooner at anchor in Juchitan Inlet now oS my plantation, and sailing for San Antonio. I can hold her until the noble Enrico and his sons come down from the Cordilleras."
"And Francis will pay the demurrage, of course," Henry interpolated with a sly sting that Leoncia caught, although it missed Francis, who cried joyously:
"Of course I will. And it proves my contention that a checkbook is pretty good to have anywhere."
To their surprise, when they had parted from the sackcloth men, the peon and his Indian father attached themselves to the Morgans, and journeyed down through the burning oil-fields to the plantation which had been the scene of the peon's slavery. Both father and son were unremitting in their devotion, first of all to Francis, and, next, to Leoncia and Henry. More than once they noted father and sen in long and earnest conversations; and, after Enrico and his sons had arrived, when the party went down to the beach to board the waiting schooner, the peon and his Maya parent followed along. Francis essayed to say farewell to them on the beach, but the peon stated that the pair of them were likewise journeying on the schooner.
"I have told you that I was not a poor man," the peon explained, after they had drawn the party aside from the waiting sailors. "This is true. The hidden treasure of the Mayas, which the conquistadores and the priests of the Inquisition could never find, is in my keeping. Or, to be very true, is in my father's keeping. He is the descendant, in the straight line, from the ancient high priest of the Mayas. He is the last high priest. He and I have talked much and long. And we are agreed that riches do not make life. You bought me for two hundred and fifty pesos, yet you made me free, gave me back to myself. The gift of a man's life is greater than all the treasure in the world. So are we agreed, my father and I. And so, since it is the way of Gringos and Spaniards to desire treasure, we will lead you to the Maya treasure, my father and I, my father knowing the way. And the way into the mountains begins from San Antonio and not from Juchitan."
"Does your father know the location of the treasure? just where it is?" Henry demanded, with an aside to Francis that this was the very Maya treasure that had led him to abandon the quest for Morgan's gold on the Calf and to take to the mainland.
The peon shook his head.
"My father has never been to it. He was not interested in it, caring not for wealth for himself. Father, bring forth the tale written in our ancient language which you alone of living Mayas can read."
From within his loin-cloth the old man drew forth a dirty and much-frayed canvas bag. Out ot this he pulled what looked like a snarl of knotted strings. But the strings were twisted sennit of some fibrous forest bark, so ancient that they threatened to crumble as he handled them, while from under the touch and manipulation of his fingers a fine powder of decay arose. Muttering and mumbling prayers in the ancient Maya tongue, he held up the snarl of knots, and bowed reverently before it ere he shook it out.