Darkness had indeed fallen when he reached the outer world of the jungle. This did not trouble him much. He had flashlights and a lantern. There was a trail leading directly to their camp. He would be there in two hours.
“And then,” he thought, “what am I to do with this box of pearls? There are men enough in this wild land who would split my head open for much less than this. They must not know.”
As he made his way through the underbrush, now listening to the distant bark of a crocodile and now catching the puh-puh-puh of a jaguar, he pondered the problem of concealing the treasure and of bringing it safely to the outside world.
At last he hit upon what seemed a brilliant idea. The box was the shape of a brick of chicle, only smaller. When he got to camp he would stuff the box with dried palm leaves so it would not rattle, then he would wrap it round and round with other palm leaves.
Having done this, he would remove one of the two bricks of chicle in a gunnysack beneath the storing shed and put in its place the beaten silver box.
“I will mark that sack with a bit of green thread woven in and out of the rough fibre. It will be safe enough until I can decide what to do with it. Does it belong to me, or to the old Don? Guess I better talk it over with my grandfather. He will know what is right.”
When he arrived at camp he found everyone asleep but one Carib watchman. As soon as he made himself known to the watchman, he inquired for his grandfather only to learn that at present his grandfather was away, but was expected back in the morning.
When, an hour later, he lay down to rest, the beaten silver box with its priceless contents lay in a coarse gunnysack beside a brick of chicle worth fifty cents a pound. And about it, above, below, on every side were other sacks of chicle.
“I must not let it get out of my sight,” he told himself. “I must—” At that he fell asleep.
The journey of the day had been long, his curious experience exhausting. He slept well; too well. When he awoke, the sunlight sifting down through the palm leaves shone upon his face.