“Why?” asked the trader.
“Toosa failed to tell us about the Golden Sun,” Tom said, knowing what was in his comrade’s mind.
Mr. Buckley spoke swiftly to Toosa who responded with a shake of his head. Then he became very thoughtful. Suddenly he walked away into the hut and sat, staring into the calabash, with its remaining liquid, the rest having been spilled.
“There isn’t any Golden Sun mine, at all,” Mr. Buckley explained. “The gold in the Honduran mountains in this section would be commercially profitless if you tried to mine it and get it to the coast. Those days of prosperity for Honduras are far in the future.”
“But Henry told us that Mort Beecher kept talking about the Golden Sun,” Tom remonstrated. “There must be something behind it!”
With a long arm Toosa beckoned to them. They hurried into the hut and stood, respectful and curious. Toosa looked up. This is what Buckley repeated from his curious sing-song chant:
“There is a Golden Sun! The Golden Sun is not a mine! The Golden Sun is alive. Ask of the San Blas Indians—and say that Toosa of the Mosquito country sent you. You find!”
“Find what?” asked Tom; but Toosa was out of the hut—and gone!
CHAPTER XI
A FALSE MESSAGE
With her propeller hammered out by slow, careful work, and with new gears in her speed changing device, the Porto Bello was once more ready for the sea.