Mystery Stories for Boys

Forbidden Cargoes

By
ROY J. SNELL

The Reilly & Lee Co.
Chicago New York

Printed in the United States of America

Copyright, 1927
by
The Reilly & Lee Co.
All Rights Reserved

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE [I A Strange Message] 9 [II An Underground Sea] 29 [III A Strange Dark Room] 47 [IV Johnny Thompson in Jail] 58 [V Tottering Walls] 68 [VI An Earthquake Within a Cave] 74 [VII Johnny Wins a Friend] 85 [VIII An Ancient Castle in Ruins] 96 [IX Creeping Shadows] 108 [X Camp Smoke] 117 [XI Battling Against Odds] 131 [XII Destruction] 152 [XIII A Thousand Pearls] 166 [XIV Hope Springs Eternal] 179 [XV Unseen Foes] 192 [XVI In Battle Array] 201 [XVII Pant’s Problem Increases] 214 [XVIII Two Blade Johnny] 221 [XIX The Unwilling Guest] 230 [XX Hail and Farewell] 247 [XXI On the Trail of the Pearls] 254 [XXII A Startling Revelation] 263 [XXIII Treasure at Last] 274

Forbidden Cargoes

CHAPTER I
A STRANGE MESSAGE

In a plain board shack with a palm thatched roof which had the Caribbean Sea at its front and the Central American jungle at its back, a slim, stooping sort of boy, with eyes that gleamed out of the dark corners exactly like a tiger’s, paced back and forth the length of a long, low room. His every motion suggested a jaguar’s stealth.

It was Panther Eye, a boy who was endowed with a cat’s ability to see in the dark, and who spent much of his young life in India and other tropical lands. He also found himself quite at home in Central America. Nevertheless, at this moment he was in deep trouble.

The palm thatched shack boasted but one room. As the boy paced the mahogany floor of this room he passed a desk of roughly hewn rosewood. A small steel safe stood in one corner, the door slightly ajar. Before it on the floor lay a litter of papers, a few bundles of letters and a sizeable roll of currency. The boy paused to consider this litter.

“It was the map they wanted,” he told himself. “Easy enough to see that. They didn’t even look at the money, nearly a thousand dollars. The map! They knew we could do nothing without the map. The dirty dogs! If only Johnny Thompson were here!” Again he paced the floor.

What was to be done? His thoughts were in a tangle. The thieves who had broken into the safe were now well away in the jungle. There was no time to be lost. He’d catch them, he was sure of that. A jaguar couldn’t escape him, much less a man. Yet the map might be destroyed. Without it nothing could be accomplished. Thousands were at stake, the treasure of a lifetime. And some one dearer to Pant than life itself was scheduled to lose. All day in that stuffy office he had waited for Johnny. Now evening was near.

“If only Johnny would come!” he repeated.

Had he but known it, his good pal, Johnny Thompson, was some three hundred miles away. What was more, he was behind iron bars in a stout stone jail. But this Pant could not know, so he continued to pace the floor.

As the first long shadow of a palm darkened the window he suddenly sprang into action. Throwing up the lid of a rough chest, he tossed out a miscellaneous assortment of articles, some small oilcloth wrapped packages, a black box, some fibre trays, a few articles of clothing and a curious instrument of iron. These he packed carefully in a kit bag, then closed the chest.

Seating himself at the desk in the corner, he began pecking at a small portable typewriter. He destroyed four half written sheets before he did one to suit him. The following is what appeared on the one he at last weighted down upon the desk:

/9*::6
5*3 ;@0 8$ -9:3 5*3 $0@:8@4%$
*@'3 85 8 @; -98:- 8:59 5*3
/7:-#3 @!534 85 8 28## -35 85
:3'34 !3@4 #99= 975 !94 @ $0@:-
8@4% :@;3% %8@( *3 8$ @
%3'8# :3'34 547$5 :94 '3#83'3 *8;
!94 @ ;9;3:5
-99% #7?=
0@:5

“There!” he sighed as he turned from the desk. “If Johnny Thompson doesn’t make that out right away he won’t be coming up to my expectations. And if any of these blacks and browns and whites that infest this waterfront can read it, I take off my hat to ’em.”

Turning about, he slung the strap of his kit bag across his shoulder and leaving the cabin, disappeared into the gathering night and the jungle.

Some hours later he might have been found crouching close to the side of a bamboo hut at the heart of the jungle.

His hands trembled as he unwrapped a water-proof package. They trembled still more as he poured a gray powder from the package to a narrow V shaped piece of iron. A little of the powder was spilled over the side and, sinking into the deep bed of tropical moss, was lost forever.

“Won’t do,” he told himself, stiffening his shoulders. “I’ve got to get hold of myself. If I don’t keep cool I’ll make a mess of it and like as not get caught in the bargain.

“Caught by those Spaniards in the heart of the jungle!” He shuddered at the thought. “Caught. And what then?” He dared not think.

“No!” His resolve was strong. “They shall not get me, and I shall succeed. I must!” His face grew tense.

At that he went ahead with his task. Having spread the gray powder evenly along the iron trough, he ran a small black fuse half through it, then gave the fuse five turns about it. When he had finished, the lower end of the fuse hung some six inches below the trough.

“There!” he sighed.

A half hour later found him still crouching at the back of that cabin. This shelter, for it was little more, was of the sort common to the Central American jungle. In its construction not a board and not a single nail was used. A number of cohune nut palms had been felled. Their great fronds had been stripped. The fibre stripped from the stems had been piled in a heap, the stems themselves in another heap. Crotched mahogany limbs were fastened together with tie-tie vines. This made a frame. Rafters were added. The bamboo leaf fibre had been laid carefully in tiers over the rafters. This made a perfect roof. After that the ten foot stems of a great number of leaves were fastened side by side in a perpendicular position to form walls. When this was completed the house was ready to be occupied.

The cracks between the upright bamboo stems forming the walls were wide. A faint light shone through these cracks, and through them the boy could see all that went on within. All this interested him, but he was filled with a fever of impatience. He had come to act, not to listen.

Two dark-faced Spaniards sat in the center of the room. Two black bushmen lay sprawled upon the dirt floor. Before them, suspended upon a bamboo frame, was a map. The map, some four feet across, showed certain boundary lines, creeks and rivers. There were spots that had been done in blue. Still others were crisscrossed by pen lines, while larger portions were left white. The figure of one Spaniard hid part of the map.

“Ah!” The boy breathed an inaudible sigh of relief as the man moved, allowing a full view of the map. “Now, if only I can do it!”

With the greatest care, he thrust the triangle of steel upon which the powder rested through a crack. Next he adjusted a small black box before the crack, but lower down. Then, with a hand that still trembled slightly in spite of his efforts at self control, he drew a sulphur match across a dry bit of wood.

The sulphur fumes rose and floated through the cracks. At the same time there came the faint sput-sput-sput of a burning fuse. One of the Spaniards arose and sniffed the air. He spoke a word to a companion. They turned half about. And still the fuse burned. Shorter and shorter it became, closer and closer to the powder.

The boy’s heart was in his throat. Was the whole affair to be spoiled by a whiff of sulphur or a fuse that burned too long?

“If they rise, if they block the view,” he thought, “then all will be—”

But no, they settled back. The whiff of sulphur had passed. But what was this? A black man jumped. Had the smell of burnt powder reached him? Had the sput-sput of the fuse reached his sensitive ear?

Whatever it was, it came too late. Of a sudden there sounded out a loud boom, and at once, for a fraction of a second, the whole place, cabin, bamboo trees, and the surrounding jungle was lighted as with a moment’s return of the sun. Then came sudden and complete darkness.

Within was noise and confusion. A bushman had overturned the candle. It had gone out. In fright and rage at an unknown phenomenon, an unseen enemy, the men fought their way to the door, then out into the night. Before this happened, however, the boy, hugging his precious black box under his arm, had lost himself in the jungle.

As we have said, this boy had lived much in the tropics. The Central American jungle was not new to him. Deep secrets of these wilds had come to him by day and by night.

With the startled cries of Spaniards and bushmen ringing in his ears, he made his way swiftly, silently down a narrow deer path to a spot where he had hidden his canvas bound kit bag.

Thrusting his black box deep within the bundle, still without a light, he made his way swiftly forward until the shouts died away in the distance.

“If only it is a success!” he thought with a sigh as he paused to adjust his pack.

Coming at last to a narrow stream he cast a few darting glances about him. The jungle here was new to him, yet the bubbling stream, the moss on the tree trunks, the tossing leaves far above him, told him all he needed to know.

Turning sharply to the right, he followed a narrow trail up the winding bank of the stream.

He had been traveling steadily up this stream for more than three hours when he came upon a place where the stream was a roaring young cataract, tumbling down a series of little falls. This was the thing he had expected. He was sleepy. The night was far spent. In his pack was a mosquito bar canopy and a light, strong hammock, woven from linen thread. With these he could quickly build a safe wilderness home. In the low swamp land, where malaria and mosquitoes lurked, he did not dare to camp.

There were wild creatures in all this jungle; crocodiles, droves of wild pigs, great boa constrictors and golden coated jaguars. For this boy all these held little terror. But the swamps were not for him. The higher slopes of the narrow peninsula offered fresher air, and cooling breezes that lull one to sleep.

“Sleep,” he whispered to himself, “and after that a dark place.”

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—”

At that, with the breeze swaying his hammock, he fell asleep.

The sun was sending its first yellow gleams among the palms when he awoke. For a time, with the damp sweet odor of morning in his nostrils, he lay there thinking.

A strange mission had brought him into the jungle. This strange boy had grown up with little or no knowledge of blood relations. His father and mother were but a dim, indistinct memory. They had passed from his life; he did not know exactly how. No cozy home fireside had gleamed for him. He had gone out into the world with an unanswered longing for some one whom he might think of as a kinsman. Bravely he had fought his way through alone. When Johnny Thompson came into his life and remained there to become his inseparable pal, life had been more joyous. Yet ever there remained a haunting dream that somehow, somewhere in his wild wanderings he would come upon one who bore his name, who could give him the traditions of a family and of a past.

Strangely enough, it had been at the edge of the Central American jungle that he came upon this person of his dreams. While walking upon the coral beach he had met a stately, white-haired old man who had the military bearing of a colonel.

In this old man he had found a friend. Little enough was left of the fortunes which from time to time had come to the venerable southerner. But such as he had he shared unsparingly with the young stranger who had come so recently from the land of his birth; for Colonel Longstreet, as the patriarch styled himself, though now for more than sixty years a resident of Central America, had fought valiantly for a lost cause when the Gray stood embattled against the Blue in that long and terrible struggle, the Civil War.

Broken hearted because of the outcome of the war, he had left his native state of Virginia and had come to Central America. His life had been further embittered by the early death of his wife. His only child, a boy of ten, had been sent back to Virginia while he struggled on, wresting a fortune from the jungle.

Life in Central America is one gamble after another. Longstreet had played in every game. He had always won, in the end to lose again. Fortunes in sugar, bananas and mahogany had been his. Sudden drops in prices, a revolution, the dread Panama disease, had cost him all of these. Now he was playing a last, lone card. Influential friends were endeavoring to secure for him a concession for gathering chicle on broad tracts of Government land.

This was the state of affairs when Pant had made his acquaintance. Hardly had their acquaintance ripened into deep friendship when they made the sudden and startling discovery that Pant was the son of the boy who had been sent back by Colonel Longstreet to Virginia, that Colonel Longstreet was none other than Pant’s grandfather. From that time forth the strange boy, who had longed for so many lonely years for one of kin, became the old man’s devoted slave.

There was need enough at the present time for such devotion.

Fortune had seemed to smile at last. Through the influence of his friends, a concession from the British Government for gathering chicle had come from England to Colonel Longstreet.

“Chicle, as you may know,” the old man had smiled, as he told Pant of it, “is the basis of all good chewing gum. Were it not for the great American game of chewing it wouldn’t be worth a red cent. As it is, with one company importing two million dollars worth a year and other smaller companies competing and yelling for more, there’s a fortune in it. There is a net profit of twenty-five cents a pound on chicle. With proper working, our tract should yield between twenty-five and fifty thousand pounds a year.”

With the writings of agreement had come a map showing the exact boundaries of the Government tract they had leased. To the right and above this tract was shown on the map the holdings of a powerful American organization. To the left were tracts leased by an unprincipled Spaniard named Diaz.

Two days after news of the fortunate concession had gone about the little city, Diaz had appeared in the Colonel’s small office. He offered a ridiculously low price for the concession. His offer was rejected. He was told that the owner meant to work the concession. He shrugged his shoulders and said:

“No get the men.”

The old man had straightened to his full height as he informed the Spaniard that he had men who could be depended upon to go anywhere, to do anything. They had worked with him and knew the honor that lay behind the Longstreet name.

Diaz had begged, entreated, stormed, threatened, then in a rage had left the office.

Two days had passed. On the third day Pant had come to the office only to find the safe looted, the map gone.

“What can we do?” he asked. “We know Diaz has it, but we can’t prove it.”

“We cannot,” the old Colonel had agreed. “Nor is there a chance of getting another before it is too late. The bleeding season for chicle begins with the first rainfall. To begin without a map is to court disaster. With a big and jealous American company on one side of us and a crooked Spaniard on the other, we are between the rocks and the tide. We are sure to encroach upon one or the other. And if we do, it will take all we have to fight their claims. It looks like defeat.” He had cupped his hands and had stared gloomily at the sea.

“Wait,” Pant had said. “Johnny Thompson will help us out. Give us a little time. We’ll find the map. Leave it to us.”

Johnny Thompson, as you already know, could not help. He was not there. Two days before he had gone up the Stann Creek Railway. He had not returned. He was in jail. Pant had been obliged to go it alone. “And now in this short time,” he told himself, “I have located the map here in the heart of the jungle. No, I haven’t got it. That couldn’t be done without bloodshed. But I have its equivalent, I hope.

“A dark place!” he exclaimed. “I must find a spot that is absolutely dark.”

As he sprang from his hammock he paused to listen. Some one was singing. In a clear girlish voice there came the words of a quaint old Spanish song.

As he parted the branches he saw a plump Spanish girl, with a round face and sober brown eyes, tripping barefoot down the path. Balanced on her head was a large stone jar.

“Going for the morning water,” the boy told himself. “How like those old Bible pictures it all is!”

Twenty minutes later he found himself within the white walls of that ancient and mysterious castle, which had a few hours before loomed so wonderfully out of the night.

CHAPTER II
AN UNDERGROUND SEA

Pant sat in a kitchen so broad and long that it reminded him of a picture he had seen in an illustrated copy of Ivanhoe. The table, on which rested his steaming cup of home grown, home roasted coffee, was a massive hand-hewn affair. On the top, a single slab of mahogany six feet wide and four inches thick, axe marks were yet to be seen.

As his glance took in the room his heart swelled with admiration. There was no stove. A great fireplace was there in its stead. Pots and pans of iron, and of copper and black tin, hung from the rafters.

“Like Longfellow’s ancient home,” he told himself. “Only this is to-day. The last of the Dons!” he repeated in a tone of reverence.

One thing puzzled him. Every article in the room, save two, belonged to yesterday—a purple coat hanging in a corner and a boy’s cap beside it—were distinctly of to-day and American made.

“They can’t belong to the young girl,” he told himself. “Nor to her grandmother.”

The bent and aged woman who must be the young Spanish girl’s grandmother was at that moment offering him his second cup of coffee.

His thoughts were cut short by the answer to his problem. A tall, fair-haired American boy, apparently in his early teens, parted the heavy homespun curtains at the back of the room and started towards the table.

Seeing Pant, he halted in surprise.

“Pardon me,” said Pant, springing to his feet. “Perhaps I intrude. I had supposed that this house belonged to these good Spanish people. Apparently it is your home instead.”

“No.” The strange boy’s smile was frank, disarming. “You were right the first time. Like you, I am an intruder. But you are from America,” he added quickly. “How perfectly grand! Won’t you please stay for a second cup, and to talk to me a little of our homeland?”

Pant stayed. They ended by talking little of the homeland. In their strange surroundings they found a fascinating subject of conversation.

“Yes,” said the boy at last, who gave his name as Kirk Munson, “they are truly the last of the Dons. Once a rich and noble family.

“And do you know”—his lips moved close, he spoke almost in a whisper, “there is a tale, perhaps only a legend, a story of a beaten silver box filled with priceless pearls taken from the Pacific when that great ocean was young. The silver box, so the story goes, was hidden away by the first Don of this family to keep it from the buccaneers, hidden and lost from sight of human eyes, perhaps forever.

“There are all sorts of caves and things like that about here,” he went on. “It’s all very mysterious and—and sort of bewitching.”

“Caves?” said Pant, awaking to his most urgent need. “Are they near? Do you suppose they are quite dark?”

“I am told,” Kirk’s voice was low again, “that there is a very great one not four miles back in the bush, and dark. It is said you are no more than inside it before you are fairly immersed in darkness.”

“The very place!” exclaimed Pant. “I must go there at once.”

“Must you?” Kirk’s voice was full of surprise.

This changed at once to entreaty. “Won’t you please let me go along? No one who lives here will take me. I have a servant, a huge Carib, a very giant of a man who will be our bodyguard.”

“That’s all right,” said Pant, rising. “Be glad for the company. But why do those who live here refuse to enter the cave?”

“Haunted.” The other boy’s tone was impressive. “They say the cave is haunted by the ghosts of more than a thousand Maya Indians who are supposed to have fled there from their enemies and to have perished centuries ago.”

“One wouldn’t care to come upon their bones in such a place.”

Kirk shuddered.

“Nevertheless, shall we go?” said Pant.

Kirk nodded.

“All right. We had better go up in the cool of late afternoon. The jungle air will not be so oppressive. We can return by the light of the moon.”

Late that afternoon, after a day of rest, Pant found himself on the broad veranda of the house. Here he unbound his pack. From it he took three light fibre trays, a package of powders, two flashlights, extra batteries for the lights, and his small black box. All these, together with a quantity of matches, he bound carefully in waterproof oiled cloth. He was then ready for the journey to the cave.

As he sat for a time, waiting for his new found friend, his mind was rife with speculations. How had this strange American boy come here so far from the seaboard? How did he come to be in Central America at all?

The Spanish people were strange, too. He had heard of them, the last of the Dons. Fragments of their history had drifted to him from afar. They were the direct descendants of a proud Spanish family. Two centuries before the family had grown immensely rich, so the story ran. How had they come by their wealth? Where had it gone? These were questions no one seemed prepared to answer. Enough. They were rich no longer. For all that, they appeared to live very comfortably off the land.

“So there is a story, probably only a legend, telling of a box of beaten silver filled with pearls,” he thought. “I must know more of that.”

He found himself far more interested in the story of that large band of Maya Indians who had perished in the cave. “The thing must have happened long ago,” he told himself.

“They did not enter the cave empty handed. When people flee they take some treasures with them. Should one come upon their bones he would be sure to find priceless curios there, beaten gold, hand cut stones and copper knives of long ago.”

Yes, he was interested in this a little, but most of all he was concerned with his own business within some dark corner of the cave.

“Wish he’d come,” he thought impatiently, “wish—”

At that moment the hugest black man he had ever seen, bearing in one hand a rifle that was a veritable cannon and in the other a basket, rounded the corner of the house. He was closely followed by the American boy.

In a loose flannel blouse, corduroy knickers and high stout boots, Kirk looked quite fit and capable.

“Ready for any adventure,” was Pant’s mental comment.

“I hope I didn’t tire you waiting,” Kirk smiled at him. “The Spanish mother put up a bit of lunch for us—casaba bread, home made cheese, butter and wild honey. She insisted; so did Ramoncita. They are dears.”

“Real sports, I’d say,” Pant assented heartily. He could scarcely remember a time when the very mention of such strange and tasty food did not whet his appetite.

“Ramoncita?” he said after a moment. “Is that the girl with round cheeks and big dark eyes?”

“Yes. Ramoncita Salazar. Musical name, isn’t it? The real Spanish people of the highest class are wonderfully attune to all things artistic and beautiful. But we must be off. This black man will go along to help carry our stuff.”

The trail they followed was steep and rocky. It was not much of a trail. In places the bushes hung over it so thick and low that they were obliged to all but creep on hands and knees; again it was so smooth and steep that only by clinging to low growing shrubs could they go forward.

For all that, there was something of a trail. Here and there were suggestions of an ancient, permanently cut way. In three places Pant found his feet firmly planted upon steps which had been cut from the solid rock.

“Stands to reason,” he said as he perched himself upon the topmost steps of the last flight, “that these were built by natives long ago. See how nature has chipped and worn the edges away.”

“Probably done by the Maya Indians centuries ago,” said Kirk, dropping upon a soft bed of moss and fanning himself with a broad leaf pulled from a palm. “Everything of importance that is told of the Maya Indians happened long ago. There are a few of them back in the hills now. They do not count any more. A nation that was once rich and in a way powerful, that had a civilization rivaling any to be found in the world five centuries ago, has dwindled to a handful of vagabonds of the jungle. It is sad.” He cupped his chin in his hands and, as if seeing the palaces and temples of that lost civilization, sat staring at the jungle. “It is said,” he went on at last, “that the cave we are about to visit was the last hiding place of the smartest and wisest of the Mayas.”

“Fleeing from the Spaniards?” asked Pant.

“No. The Spaniards have many atrocities justly charged against them. But the great Maya civilization was destroyed by fierce, war-like tribes from the North before the prow of the white man’s boat touched Central America’s coral strands.

“The last of the Mayas are said to have fled to this cave and, unless they knew a secret passage leading out of the cave, to have perished there.”

Again Pant thought of the ancient treasure they must have carried with them.

“Did the savage tribe follow them into the cave?”

“They were afraid. That’s the way the story goes. Afraid the Earth God of the Mayas would push the mountain down upon them if they should enter.”

“So,” thought Pant, “whatever the Mayas took with them is in the cave still. And they were possessed of great wealth. I have read of it. Gold and jade, topaz and perhaps diamonds, pearls from the western shores and strange little gods carved from rare stones or formed from metal.”

All this he thought, but not one word did he say as they resumed their upward march.

The entrance to the cave, which they reached after much climbing, was most picturesque. Its mouth was entirely hidden by dark spreading palm leaves. A sparkling stream, appearing to emerge from nowhere, went dashing headlong over a rocky ledge.

Parting the large leaves as if they had been a curtain, the boys peered within to find there a dark hole from which there came a constant draft of cool damp air.

“Boo!” said Pant. “It’s cold in there.”

The other boy did not hear him. He was staring in amazement at his black servant. As if seized by a sudden fit of ague, the giant was shaking violently from head to foot.

“A chill,” said Pant as he caught sight of him.

“Afraid,” his companion whispered back. “Afraid of the Earth God of the Mayas. He has great courage and the strength of three. I have never known him to fear anything before.”

In a moment it became evident that the black man was ashamed of his fear and was making brave attempts to conquer it. In the end he won and, seating himself upon a rock, watched his young master and Pant remove their shoes and stockings. The narrow entrance to the cave offered no footing save the moss covered rocks at the bottom of the stream.

As they signified their readiness to start, the black lifted the door of a strange glassless lantern of beaten brass which, Pant was told, burned fish oil and would provide a feeble light for hours on end. After lighting the lantern he plunged boldly into the stream and led the way through icy water straight into the darkness of night until, with a grunt of satisfaction, he emerged panting and dripping upon a dry ledge where the cave suddenly widened to a broad chamber.

For a time, lighted only by the dull gleam of the Carib’s lantern, they moved along the brink of the narrow stream. The silence was oppressive. The stream flowed placidly over an all but level floor, making no sound. Only the gentle pat-pat of their bare feet disturbed the tomb-like hush that hung over all.

Then of a sudden, like thunder from a clear sky, pandemonium broke loose. The innocent cause of all the commotion was the Carib. He had, by chance, struck his lantern against a rock.

The air was filled with strange noises, such a whirring and snapping as not one of them had heard before.

“Wha—what is it?” Kirk’s hand trembled as he gripped Pant’s arm.

“Bats,” said Pant. “Stand perfectly still. They will settle.”

For a single second he threw on his flashlight and allowed it to play across the space before them. The other boy’s eyes went big with wonder. Even Pant, who had seen much of Central American life, was astonished. Bats, a million of them it seemed, circled the air. And such bats! No tiny mouse-like creatures were these, but great gray monsters with broad spreading wings, gleaming eyes and teeth that shone white in the perpetual night about them.

“Don’t.” Kirk’s hand was on his arm. The light flashed out.

“May as well go ahead,” said Pant. “Doubt if they go far back into the cave.”

They had not gone a hundred yards before they came to a very narrow passage. Once more they were obliged to take to the bed of the stream. This lasted only a moment. As they emerged there came over them a sense of vastness. Was it the quality of silence that was there? Was it the changed sound of their footsteps? Or was it some sixth sense that told them? As Pant threw the gleam of his powerful flashlight before them, an exclamation escaped every lip.

Nothing they had seen in any land could compare with the splendor of the masonry of the vast cathedral that lay before them.

Masonry? This indeed they at first thought it, the work of some great lost race. In time they came to realize that the splendid gleaming pillars were the work of time and a great Creator, the Master Builders of all ages. The pillars were great stalagmites, formed by the dripping of water through a thousand thousand years.

Strangest of all, as they listened they caught from afar a sound that was like music.

“Like some mighty organ played softly while a thousand children chant,” Kirk whispered.

It was now time to cover their feet, yet even the Carib felt something of the awe that led the others on, still barefooted.

The illusion of the chant could not last forever. As they advanced the sound increased in volume, became more distinct until it burst upon them as the rush and roar of a miniature cataract, where the stream emerged from a chamber still beyond.

“Shall we go on?” Pant stood with his feet in the lower water of the cataract.

“If—if we don’t get lost,” the younger boy hesitated.

“Not a chance,” said Pant. “We have only to follow the stream back.”

“To be sure. How stupid of me. Yes, let’s go on.” There was an eager note in Kirk’s voice. Pant read it correctly. He was eager to go forward for, in some hidden chamber, perhaps just beyond, there might rest a vast treasure from the forgotten past.

The ascent of the water worn and slippery rocks was difficult. More than once the younger boy was in danger of being thrown into the torrent of water, but drawn on by Pant, lifted forward now and then by the giant black, he made his way upward until with a sigh of relief he dropped upon dry sand at the head of the waterfall. Once more Pant’s light gleamed out before them. Fresh marvels awaited them. A vast, silent underground lake, reaching as far as the light would carry and yet beyond, seemed to beckon them on.

Switching off his light, that batteries might be saved for a possible emergency, Pant followed the Carib and his dim light along the shore of this new marvel.

They had gone two hundred yards or more when out of the darkness before them, on the shore of the lake, something loomed indistinct and gray.

“What is it?” The younger boy came to a sudden halt.

“We’ll see.” There came the snap of Pant’s flashlight.

The next instant, as if pushed by a sudden force, they all fell back. Before them, drawn up on the beach, with paddles crossed over the seat, was a light canoe.

Staring with all their eyes, they stood there expecting any moment to see the mysterious canoeist emerge from the dim distance beyond.

Not knowing what to think, Pant stood at attention. As he did so, a strange chattering struck his ears. Wheeling about, he discovered the cause. The black giant’s teeth were chattering. Once more he was shaking from head to foot. His face was almost white with fear.

CHAPTER III
A STRANGE DARK ROOM

Not knowing what else to do as he stood before the canoe, Pant laughed. The laugh did not ring quite true, but it served the purpose for which it was intended. It broke the spell.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s see.”

A few strides and he stood beside the mysterious craft.

“Dust,” he said, dragging his fingers across the seat. “Probably been here for a hundred, two hundred years.”

“How wonderfully preserved it is,” said Kirk.

“Those people knew the secret of preserving wood by boiling it in certain kinds of oil. They knew a great deal more that might well have been kept by the white man. But the type of Spaniard who came to these shores, as well as the wild barbarians who came before them, were all for gold.”

As he stood there beside this strange underground sea, with this relic of another age so close beside him, Pant found himself lost in revery. He was trying to reproduce through his mind’s eye the scenes that these silent waters might once have witnessed.

“What a unique picnic ground,” he said to Kirk. “One sees it still. Gleaming torches, moving like giant firebugs across the water; dark canoes gliding here and there; the joyous shouts of children that came echoing back.”

“Hello-o!” he shouted suddenly. Back across the water it came to him again and again. “Hello-o—H-e-l-l-o-o-o.”

“Perhaps there are fish,” he went on. “May be very large fish. Blind, because there is no need of eyes, but fine fish all the same. Can you see them, the little Indian boys fishing from their canoes? Can you catch the gleam of their campfires as they roasted their fish over the coals?”

He kicked the beach under his feet and sure enough, from beneath the dust of centuries he uncovered the ashes of a long burned out fire.

“You see,” he smiled, “I am a conjurer. I can read both the past and the future.”

“Then,” said the other boy with a little shudder and a doubtful smile, “tell us what happens next.”

“Next?” said Pant. “Why next we find a small room equipped with a table and some chairs. I have some work to do in such a place, in fact that’s what I came for. I needed a dark room. But this,” he spread his arm wide, “this is not a room; it is a whole hidden world.”

Turning without another word, the other boy beckoned to the great Carib, who had regained his composure, and together they skirted the shore of the lake to penetrate deeper into the hidden mysteries of the mountain.

Again the chamber narrowed. Again they were obliged to take to the bed of the stream.

This time, to Pant’s great joy, they emerged into a small room walled and pillared in spotless white.

“The very place!” he exclaimed. “To be sure, there are no real chairs or table, but that heap of fallen stalactites will take their place, and there is water in abundance. Have a seat. I will be through before you know it.”

Unwrapping his pack, he drew forth the fibre trays. These he filled with water. Having placed them upon a circular fragment of stalactite that offered a level surface like the top of a round table, he shook a powder into one, a second powder into another, and left the other crystal clear and pure.

After stirring the powder for a time, he drew forth a red cloth and wound it twice round the Carib’s lantern.

The effect was startling. At once the glistening white stalactites and stalagmites were turned blood red. The Carib struggled hard against the wild fears and superstitions within him, conquered in the end, to sit impassive, watching.

Opening his black box, Pant removed a square of film. Having dropped this into the first tray, he began rocking it slowly back and forth.

“A picture!” exclaimed Kirk. “Do you mean to tell me you have come all this way to develop a picture?”

“There was no other dark room. And besides,” said Pant, “this picture is important, the most important bit of work I have done in a long time. Upon its success hangs my good old grandfather’s entire fortune.

“You see,” he went on, as he continued to rock the tray, “through influential friends my grandfather secured a valuable concession, the right to gather chicle on a large tract of government land. This tract is bordered on one side by the holdings of the Central Chicle Company, a powerful and jealous corporation. This company is honest, but perhaps they are unscrupulous in their competition. Who can tell? Perhaps they would drive my grandfather to the wall if they could.”

Had not the red light hid it, he might have seen a crimson flush suffuse the other boy’s face as he spoke these words. It was lost upon him.

“Our tract,” he went on, “is bordered on the other side by land owned by an unscrupulous Spaniard.

“We received a map from England showing the boundaries of our holdings. It had not been in the office a week when it was stolen. Without it our hands were tied. If we attempted to work our concession without knowing the true unfenced boundaries we were sure to infringe upon the rights of our neighbors. If we did not they would claim we had, and would ruin us with claims for indemnities.

“If we did not have the map back within a very short time—” he paused to hold the square of film to the light. A little cry of joy escaped his lips. “It’s coming! I’ve got them! See those dark spots, three of them?”

The other boy nodded.

“Three men,” he said impressively.

He dropped the film into the developing bath to resume his story. “I told grandfather to wait, I would get the map. I went straight back into the bush where the crafty Spaniard has his camp. It was dangerous, but I know the bush. I was careful. I took my camera and a flashlight outfit with me. Fortune was with me. I came upon the Spaniard and two of his men examining the map at night. They were inside a bamboo cabin. I put my camera to a crack, opened the shutter, touched off a flash, and at once was away. That is how I came to the home of your Spanish friends. That is why I am here. And there,” he said, holding the film by its corners, “is the picture. And it is far better than I hoped for.”

The film was indeed a strong and clear one. The crafty faces of the Spaniards and the square map stood out in bold relief.

“Just a touch more,” he sighed as he dipped it carefully in the solution.

“You see,” he added in conclusion, “all we need to do is to get an enlargement made. That will give us a perfect map showing all the boundaries. What’s more, it gives us proof that they stole the map.”

“I am glad,” said Kirk, “that it was not the big American Company who stole it.”

“Oh, they wouldn’t do that,” said Pant quickly. “But why are you glad?”

The other boy did not reply. A moment of silence followed. Pant dropped his film into the washing tray, then began rocking it again.

Moments passed. Only the drip-drip of water in some distant corner of the cave and the all but inaudible rush of the stream disturbed the silence of the place.

“There!” Pant breathed at last as he dropped the film into the fixing bath. “We can have more light now. How would you like to take your man here and go into the chamber just beyond while I finish this job? No harm can come of it, and you might discover something of real interest.”

For a moment the younger boy hesitated. Then, as if struck by a sudden thought, he said, “Yes. Why not?”

A moment later Pant saw the shadows of his two companions in adventure moving jerkily along the gleaming walls.

“Like ghosts,” he thought. Something like a tremor ran down his spine.

He turned to attend to his film. When he looked again they were gone. Instantly he regretted his suggestion.

“Spooky business, being here alone in this cave,” he thought. “Dark and damp—sort of like a tomb. Who knows how many human beings have perished here? This cave is their tombstone and their vault. How still it is!” Listening, he thought he heard his own heart beat. “What would I do if they failed to return? Go in search of them, I suppose. And then?”

He did not like to think of exploring the place alone. All well enough with others, but alone? Well, anyway, one likes company in such a place.

The fixing bath was done with. For the final washing he chose a still pool at the side of the stream. As he dropped in the film, a tiny fish, startled from its place of hiding, suddenly leaped clear of the water. The effect on the boy was startling. He jumped backward, and nearly fell into the stream.

“Bah!” he exclaimed, quite put out at himself. “How absurd! Nerves. Have to find something to do.”

Having completed the washing of the film, he fitted it into a protecting frame, then closed two trays over it and bound the whole tight. He finished by repacking the kit.

This done, he allowed his eyes to wander here and there about the place. “Have a look,” he told himself. Instantly some object in a distant corner, quite well up on a broken ledge, caught his attention.

“Strange!” he murmured. “Doesn’t look quite natural. Unusual color. Have a look.” He started toward the corner, then paused. A curious tremor shot through him. It was as if he had been on board a ship that had rolled ever so lightly in a trough of the sea.

“Nonsense!” he muttered. “Nerves.” He again moved toward the corner.

At that very moment, as often happens when one stands facing some strange and mysterious phenomenon, Pant thought of one who was far away, his good pal Johnny Thompson.

He thought, too, of the strange message of figures and signs he had left in the office at Stann Creek. He wondered if Johnny had found it yet. If so, had he read it? Premonitions of some happening tremendous and terrifying were passing through his mind. If disaster overtook him here, would Johnny decipher the note? Would he come in search of him? Would he ultimately find him? So his thoughts whirled on.

CHAPTER IV
JOHNNY THOMPSON IN JAIL

It may seem a trifle strange that anything could have separated these good pals, Johnny and Pant. Fact is, only Pant’s discovery of a genuine blood relative, his grandfather, could have brought about such separation. Pant of course had become deeply engrossed in the work of building up the fortune of his white-haired grandsire. In this task Johnny had shown a lively interest until the concession with the priceless map enclosed had arrived. From that time on, it had seemed, nothing remained to be done save to round up a band of chicleros and get back into the bush. There a camp would be built and long weeks spent in gathering and boiling down the sap of the “chewing gum” trees. For this task Johnny had no taste. He must have adventure.

So on that bright tropical morning, little dreaming that the safe would be robbed that night and that adventure would be provided for all, he had cut himself a stout stick for dealing with snakes, had strapped a machete to his belt and had fared forth alone in search of adventure.

Had Johnny lived in Honduras twenty-five years, or even ten, he would have waited for the train. It wouldn’t go up for two days. But always, to the Central American, there is plenty of time.

But Johnny was new to the Tropics. He was in the habit of taking the best transportation he could get. The best this time was a pair of short sturdy legs which belonged to Johnny Thompson.

The road leads through a jungle. Here and there is a small group of struggling, insignificant banana plantations, but the jungle has so far succeeded in taking them back to itself that they, too, seem wild.

There is a certain joy to be had from a journey on foot through a tropical jungle. There is a glimmer of green, a fresh damp odor of decay, faint and pleasing as musk, and there always comes from the bushes and trees a suggestion of low, joyous music, made, perhaps by bees and birds, but nevertheless it is there, an indescribable music. Johnny had enjoyed all this until he had begun to feel the need of food and refreshment. Most of all, he wanted a drink. Any old drink would do. But there was no drink. The dry season was nearing its close. Everywhere the floor of the jungle was dry as the Sahara.

Had Johnny lived long in the jungle he would have stepped aside to break the stem of a certain plant, then to catch in the hollow of his hand the delicious water that came dripping out almost in a stream.

He hadn’t lived long in a jungle, so all he could do was to plod on.

When his desire for water had become intense longing, when his tongue seemed to fill his mouth and his throat clicked when he swallowed, he had found himself by a sudden turn to the right brought suddenly into the midst of an orchard of fruit trees.

“Forbidden fruit” is the name the natives have given these great golden balls. Johnny didn’t call them that. He had called them grapefruit. He hadn’t eaten grapefruit many times because he had found them bitter.

“Bitter!” he had said, making a wry face. “Bitter, and me dying of thirst!” At a distance they had looked like oranges.

“Oh well—” He had resigned himself to his fate. “Here goes!”

He had left the railway bed, then dropping on the moss beneath a heavily laden tree, had seized upon a great golden ball and had begun tearing away its covering.

Having quartered the fruit, he had made up a wry face and thrust a generous wedge into his mouth.

Instantly the wry face had vanished. A glorious smile took its place.

“Not bad,” he said, filling his mouth again. “Not half bad. Just need to get ripe, I suppose. Sugar would be an insult to such fruit as this. People in the States don’t know what it is.”

He had spoken to himself, but some one else had heard, for from somewhere above him there had come in a melodious voice:

“So you like forbidden fruit?”

“I—I beg your pardon!” Johnny was on his feet at once. “I—I didn’t mean to steal. See here, I’ll buy a quarter’s worth.”

He had looked up at the girl whose golden hair, golden freckles and dark green dress so completely blended with fruit and foliage that, until now, he had not seen her.

“Have you a donkey?” There was a suggestion of a laugh in the girl’s tone. “I don’t see any.”

“Why must I have a donkey?” Johnny looked his surprise.

“Because we sell them by the barrel. Fifty cents a barrel. Of course, for a quarter you’d only get a half a barrel. But even so, how are you going to carry them?” Shaking out her dress and laughing the girl had dropped to the ground.

Out of his little adventure in the grapefruit orchard had grown a new enterprise. Johnny suddenly decided to become a shipping agent. Madge Kennedy, who had turned out to be a Scotch girl, had insisted upon his accompanying her to the house to meet her grandfather, Donald Kennedy. The grandfather, a great gray-bearded man with a store of knowledge that could come only from long study and many years in the jungle, had proven a find indeed. Johnny did not soon tire of sitting on the broad veranda of the long one-story house, listening to the old man as he rambled on about bananas and grapefruit, strange tropical foods, Carib Indians, and the future of their little Central American Colony.

It had not taken Johnny long to discover, however, that these kindly people were really almost paupers in the midst of their abundance. Many carloads of the finest fruit in the world hung ripe on the trees. Why was it not being shipped?

When he had pressed them for an answer to this puzzling question, Madge Kennedy had told him that the fruit company had refused to accept their fruit. The reason, she supposed, was that her grandfather had two years before sold his crop to the owner of a tramp steamer. The great East Sea Fruit Company, which had a monopoly on the fruit trade of Central America, did not wish competition, and they took this method of punishing her grandfather.

“But say!” Johnny leaped to his feet. “I’ll find you a ship. There’s one anchored off Belize now. Jorgensen is the captain. He’s anxious enough for a cargo. Came all this way for a cargo of mahogany. The half-caste Indian woodcutters are on a strike. There is no mahogany to haul.”

“Oh!” Madge beamed upon him in sudden excitement.

“But then,” her smile vanished, “I know the ship. It’s no use. We have only a third of a cargo for her.”

“Finish up with bananas,” Johnny suggested.

“Whose bananas? Every grower has a contract to sell only to the Fruit Company.”

For a little time Johnny felt himself baffled, defeated. Then of a sudden an inspiration came. Many times he had watched the loading of bananas off the dock at Stann Creek.

“Six hands!” he exclaimed excitedly. “That’s it! Six hands! We’ll have a cargo yet!”

That very night, after telling Madge of his grand plan, he started for Guatemala City to see the man who owned the largest banana plantation in Central America.

For some little time fortune smiled upon him in his new enterprise. Arriving at Stann Creek in the dead of night he found a sailing boat preparing to leave for Porte Barrios. At this port he caught a train for Guatemala. High noon found him walking the streets of that ancient and most beautiful city of Central America.

The city’s beauty was lost upon him. His thoughts were centered about one man, Don del Valle, the richest banana grower in all that land. He at once went about the task of finding the man and securing an interview. Having discovered the dapper, black-eyed Guatemalan sitting in his garden sipping wine, he wasted no time on ceremony but, boy-like, launched at once into his project.

The astonished del Valle, who understood only a part of what was said and who was accustomed to inflict long periods of waiting and numerous delays, stared at him in astonishment for a time. Then he demanded:

“What is it that this mad boy wants?”

“Bananas! I want bananas!” Johnny exclaimed.

“Well then, go and buy them, as many as you like.” del Valle threw a handful of coppers at his feet.

“But I want many. Two-thirds of a ship load, twenty thousand bunches.” Johnny’s face took on an air of unusual seriousness.

“But I have no bananas to sell. They are contracted for, as you should know, by your great American company.”

“But not the six hands.” Johnny exclaimed eagerly. “I only ask for six hands.”

“Six hands!” the Guatemalan exclaimed in a fit of passion. “Six hands! Here, take this crazy youth to jail. I will prefer a charge of annoying a gentleman.”

The two native policemen, who were in reality the official guard of the great gentleman, sprang into action. Ten minutes later Johnny found himself inside looking out, and the window he looked through was heavily barred. So it was that Johnny Thompson came to be in jail.

CHAPTER V
TOTTERING WALLS

It was at an early hour of that same night that Johnny, having wakened from some vaguely remembered dream, found himself rudely shaken by a strange convulsion beneath and about him.

“Ship’s pitching something terrible,” he told himself. “Must be a hurricane.”

“Ship?” something within him seemed to whisper. “Ship? When did you embark upon a ship?”

Vaguely he groped about in his brain for facts. The sensations that come to one just before he falls asleep are, more often than not, awaiting him when he awakes. Johnny’s had remained with him. They were earth sensations, solid earth, a place close and stuffy, and stone, solid stone, not shifting sea.

But there was now a strange rocking and shuddering, no mistake about that. There it was again! Zowie! What a lurch!

“Like a ship at sea in a storm,” he told himself. “No, not quite. More like a ship stuck fast on a coral reef, being beaten to pieces by the waves.”

The thought was startling. Again he attempted to sit up. This time he succeeded.

Light streamed down upon him, moonlight broken into little squares.

“Bars,” he thought. “Prison bars!”

Yes, now he remembered. This bed, not a bed at all, merely a broad ledge of stone left by the prison masons in lieu of a bed. Strange sort, these Central American prisons!

Then, as if to refute all this, there came again that horrible rocking shudder.

Struggling to grasp reality, Johnny’s eyes, roving the dark spaces about him, arrived at the crisscross iron bars of the window. To his vast astonishment he saw those iron bars, in a solid mass, literally torn from the masonry.

“I don’t know where I am,” he told himself, “but I won’t be there very long.”

With one thought uppermost in his mind, that of escape, he leaped for the window, gripped the sill, drew himself up, balanced for a second there in the moonlight, then dropped.

He landed rather solidly, not upon the tossing sea, but upon tossing dry land.

A moving figure loomed before him.

“A guard!” His quickened senses registered the thought.

“Strike first, and talk afterwards.” His head buried itself into the soft center of the moving object. With a grunt the man went down.

He wished the earth would stand still. It made him seasick, that rocking motion. They hadn’t had a reason for putting him in prison—not any real reason. He had done nothing except insist upon buying twenty thousand bunches of bananas. He had tried to do a great service to a splendid old man and a beautiful girl. He had reason enough for wanting to be out of prison, plenty of reasons. There was the girl, Madge Kennedy, back there in the orchard of forbidden fruit, and her grandfather, the aged Britisher who was so much of a man and so little of a business man that his orchards and banana plantations would never make him a cent unless some one took a hand. And there was old Jorgensen, good old salt water skipper, walking his deck night and day and staring gloomily at the Caribbean Sea.

The earth stopped rocking for an instant. An open court lay before him. He was beginning to realize that he was having a new experience. One of those frequent Central American earthquakes had broken loose. That was why a stone prison had seemed so like a ship on a tossing sea.

“Open places are best,” he told himself.

He had taken a dozen steps when there came a shock which sent him down like a ten-pin. At the same instant he touched an object lying near him.

He found it soft and yielding. It was a weeping child, a beautiful, black-haired, black-eyed girl of seven.