“No. Truth is, no one seems to know where he is gone.”
“But he will be arrested?”
“Probably not,” the deputy spoke slowly.
“What! Not arrested!”
“He is a British subject. The relations between Mexico and Honduras have not always been the best. It would be a hazard. To arrest and try him would be a danger.”
For a moment Pant felt like repenting the action he had thought of as being done for the good of all. To risk one’s happiness, perhaps one’s very life, and then to have nothing come of it, that was bitterness indeed.
The deputy, having read the look on Pant’s face, was speaking again: “Do not worry; your work was not in vain. He shall be punished. And for one so greedy as he, his punishment will be severe indeed. His concessions shall be taken from him. Within thirty days he must remove his wagons, his tractors, his chicle kettles, everything that belongs to him. His mahogany, which is at the river’s bank, will be held in bond by the Government.”
Pant’s chair, which had been tilted back, came down with a thump. Concessions revoked! He had not thought of that. Those concessions were so vast in extent that his mind could scarcely take them in. Someone had told him that Daego had made a quarter of a million dollars the previous year on chicle.
“And that is the price he pays for his paltry gains from illicit traffic. Surely one pays heavily for the steps that make him a law-breaker.”
“My friend,” said the deputy, “you are alone here with this boy, Johnny Thompson, and your Caribs?”