Hearts of Three

by London Jack

"It is the chest, I am certain," he declared. "Come! All of you! Drag this out to the dry land so that we may examine into it!"

But when this was accomplished, and just as he bent to Dpen the lid, the Jefe stopped him.

"Go back into the water, the lot of you," he commanded his men. "There are a number of chests like this, and the expedition will be a failure if we don't find them. One chest vould not pay the expenses."

Not until all the men were floundering and groping in the water, did Torres raise the lid. The Jefe stood transfixed. He could only gaze and mutter inarticulate mouthings.

"Now will you believe?" Torres queried. "It is beyond price. We are the richest two men in Panama, in South America, in the world. This is the Maya treasure. We heard of it when' we were boys. Our fathers and our grandfathers dreamed of it. The Conquistadores failed to find it. And it is ours ours!"

And, while the two men, almost stupefied, stood and stared, one by one their followers crept out of the water, formed a silent semi-circle at their backs, and likewise stared. Neither did the Jefe and Torres know their men stood at their backs, nor did the men know of the Lost Souls that were creeping stealthily upon them from the rear. As it was, all were staring at the treasure with fascinated amazement when the attack was sprung.

Bows and arrows, at ten yards distance, are deadly, especially when due time is taken to make certain of aim. Two-thirds of the treasure — seekers went down simultaneously. Through Vicente, who had chanced to be standing directly behind Torres, no less than two spears and five arrows had perforated. The handful of survivors had barely time to seize their rifles and whirl, when the club attack was upon them. In this Rafael and Ignacio, two of the gendarmes who had been on the adventure to the Juchitan oil fields, almost immediately had their skulls cracked. And, as usual, the Lost Souls women saw to it that the wounded did not remain wounded long.

The end for Torres and the Jefe was but a matter of moments, when a loud roar from the mountain followed by a crashing avalanche of rock, created a diversion. The few Lost Souls that remained alive, darted back terror-stricken into the shelter of the bushes. The Jefe and Torres, who alone stood on their feet and breathed, cast their eyes up the cliff to where the smoke still issued from the new-made hole, and saw Henry Morgan and the Queen step into the sunshine on the lip of the cliff.

"You take the lady," the Jefe snarled. "I shall get the Gringo Morgan if it's the last act of what seems a life that isn't going to be much longer."

Both lifted their rifles and fired. Torres, never much at a shot, sent his bullet fairly centered into the Queen's breast. But the Jefe, master marksman and possessor of many medals, made a clean miss of his target. The next instant, a bullet from Henry's rifle struck his wrist and traveled up the forearm to the elbow, whence it escaped and passed on. And as his rifle clattered to the ground he knew that never again would that right arm, its bone pulped from wrist to elbow, have use for a rifle.