At that moment the moonlight, falling through an open space among the trees and spreading a yellow gleam upon the trail, showed him that which brought him up short. In a damp spot at the base of a rock were footprints, the marks of a slim foot clad in sandals, and stranger than this in so wild a spot, the marks of a leather shoe.
“Huh!” He stood for a moment in perplexity.
One who knows the jungle is seldom surprised at what he finds there. Pant was surprised. This portion of the jungle was new to him. “Twenty miles from the coast,” he murmured. “How strange!”
More was to follow. He had not gone a hundred yards farther before he came upon a well-beaten road. A little beyond this spot, in the midst of a broad clearing, half hidden by stately royal palms, gleaming white in the moonlight, was a long, low stone house which in this land might almost pass for a mansion.
Pausing, he stood there in the moonlight, staring and irresolute. It had all come to him in a flash.
“The last of the Dons,” he said to himself. Something akin to awe crept into his tone. “I had forgotten.”
“But what now?” he asked himself a moment later. “The jungle or this?”
In the end he chose the castle before him. “Might be a dark place up there somewhere, an abandoned cellar perhaps,” was his final comment.
Having chosen a secluded spot at the side of the trail where he might hang his hammock and spread his canopy to sleep the rest of the night through, he went quickly to rest.
“I have heard that they are friendly, and honorable Spaniards. There are such, plenty of them. I’ll risk it. I—”