Hartley opened the conversation.
“I will first tell you a bit of a story, Mr. Parker,” he said; “it will help to explain matters.”
“Proceed!” said Parker, stiffly.
“As I must first inform you,” continued the captain, “Mr. Clifford here is an antiquarian and traveler. He was some few weeks ago engaged in exploring the interior of Honduras. In the mountains he found the ruined city of an ancient race. In exploring the ruins he found a secret chamber which was completely walled up, save for one small opening large enough to put a hand through.
“In this secret chamber there was a skeleton enclosed in fragments of armor, such as was worn by the soldiers of Spain in the sixteenth century.
“Here was a mystery, and he at once set himself at work to solve it. His first assumption was that it was the remains of one of the early Spanish invaders, who had been made a prisoner by the natives and shut up here to starve to death.
“And upon the walls of the death cell he found the following scratched in barely legible characters into the stone:
“I, Don Cristobal Mendoza, am thrown into this dungeon to starve by the heathen, curses upon them! Curses upon the fortune which placed me in their power.
“Here I am doomed to die, while my ship, the Donna Veneta, lies fathoms deep in the ocean, off this cursed coast, with all my great fortune aboard.
“Woe is the day I left sunny Spain with my princely holdings, to set up a kingdom in this land of deception and disappointment. Buried at the bottom of the sea is my noble ship and millions of pesos, while I am to die in this fearful hole. Jesus pity! Save my soul!”