It was indeed an interesting collection he had gathered quite at random. A bracelet of gold set with jade, a small bronze god, grinning and terrible, a miniature silver goblet, and some other bits of jewelry of such odd design that one was not able to so much as guess their purpose.
“Sometime,” said Kirk, “we will go back for more.”
“I doubt if you will ever enter that chamber again,” said Pant. “I believe the earthquake closed the entrance to that particular chamber. But we will go back.
“Oh yes, we will go back,” he repeated a moment later. He was thinking of the strange chest that was all but within his grasp when the earth shudder came.
“But now,” said Kirk, “we must go down. Morning will soon be here. And think what the earthquake must have done to the old Don’s castle! Come!” he cried, shuddering with a terrible apprehension. “Our good friends may be buried beneath the ruins of their home—they may be dead!”
Closely followed by Pant and the great Carib, he sprang away down the ancient trail.
CHAPTER VII
JOHNNY WINS A FRIEND
Just as the first faint glow of dawn lighted the shattered walls and yawning windows of the ancient Guatemalan jail from which Johnny Thompson had been so strangely released, the Spanish child in his arms stirred, then sat up to stare about her. At that moment a tall, dark Honduran came walking rapidly across the plaza.
“Don del Valle!” Johnny started. This was the man who owned a fifth of all the banana land in Central America, the man who had ordered him thrown into jail.
“What next?” he thought.