“Well then, go and buy them, as many as you like.” del Valle threw a handful of coppers at his feet.
“But I want many. Two-thirds of a ship load, twenty thousand bunches.” Johnny’s face took on an air of unusual seriousness.
“But I have no bananas to sell. They are contracted for, as you should know, by your great American company.”
“But not the six hands.” Johnny exclaimed eagerly. “I only ask for six hands.”
“Six hands!” the Guatemalan exclaimed in a fit of passion. “Six hands! Here, take this crazy youth to jail. I will prefer a charge of annoying a gentleman.”
The two native policemen, who were in reality the official guard of the great gentleman, sprang into action. Ten minutes later Johnny found himself inside looking out, and the window he looked through was heavily barred. So it was that Johnny Thompson came to be in jail.
CHAPTER V
TOTTERING WALLS
It was at an early hour of that same night that Johnny, having wakened from some vaguely remembered dream, found himself rudely shaken by a strange convulsion beneath and about him.
“Ship’s pitching something terrible,” he told himself. “Must be a hurricane.”
“Ship?” something within him seemed to whisper. “Ship? When did you embark upon a ship?”