CHAPTER VIII AN ANCIENT CASTLE IN RUINS
The moon was still casting a golden glow over the wonders of a tropicalworld when Pant and Kirk, closely followed by the giant Carib, emergingfrom the jungle caught their first look at the last Don's plantation.With eager eyes they sought out the spot where the ancient castle hadstood.
At a first startled glance Kirk cried out in dismay. Little wonder this,for where a noble edifice had stood a mournful sight now met their eyes.The magnificent, century old castle was now only a crumbled pile ofbroken timber, tumbled stone and crumbling mortar.
"Gone!" Kirk cried. "They are all gone!"
"It can't be as bad as that," said Pant. "At the first shock they wouldrun from the house. Come on. Let's get down there."
No sooner said than done. Heedless of sharp stones that cut their shoesand sharper cacti that tore their flesh, they sprang away over theintervening space that lay between them and the tumbled pile of debristhat had once been a very happy home.
It was with a cry of great joy that Kirk found his good friends, thefamily of the last Don, gathered upon a little circle of green that laybefore the ruins.
After a quiet greeting befitting such a moment of great sadness, the boystook their places beside them.
It was a strange and moving sight that met their eyes as they lookedabout them. Even Pant, who had seen and experienced much, felt a chokingsensation about his throat. Sprawled about upon the ground in variousattitudes of sleep were the servants. Not so the family. The agedgrandmother sat rocking gently back and forth. The last of the Dons, whohad returned from a trip down the river just in time to see his homecrumble to ruins, walked slowly before them. With hands clasped behindhis back, he paced ceaselessly backward and forward in the moonlight.
Sitting beside the two boys, the dark-eyed Spanish girl, granddaughter ofthe last of the Dons, stared dreamily at the moon. To her no tragedycould be quite complete, for was she not young and beautiful? Was not allthe world fresh and new? Strong she was, too, and brave. Many the jaguarthat had known the steel of her unfaltering aim, many the wild turkeybrought in by her to be roasted before the fire.
"Now," she said, and there was a note akin to joy in her tone, "we shalllive like the savages in a house of thatched bamboo. Through the manycracks the morning sun shall peep at us as we awake. The rain shall fallgently upon our roof, the breeze shall play with my hair as I sit in ourlittle castle of bamboo. The jaguar may look in upon us at night and thelittle wild pigs go grunting about our cabin. My good friend Kirk, and mynew friend Pant, we will live like savages and life will be sweet for,after all, what is so romantic as a little home in the midst of a vastwilderness?"
Kirk smiled at her. He admired the courage of this child of an old, longlost race.
As for Pant, he scarcely heard her. He was thinking of the fragments of atale that had come to his ears, the tale of the first Don and his box ofbeaten silver filled with priceless pearls.
"It may have been hidden in the walls of that very building which therude shock of nature has wrecked," he told himself. "I must have a lookover those ruins.
"And then perhaps," he thought more soberly still, "that may have beenthe box I saw on the rocky ledge just as the earthquake shook the worlddown upon my head. I wonder if that passage was closed? If it is not, wasthe box buried in the wreckage? Who can tell? I must know."
His thoughts returned to the American boy who had accompanied him, whonow sat close beside him. During the previous day he had been taken tothe boy's room. There he had seen costly toilet articles, silver backedbrushes, real tortoise shell combs, and genuine alligator skin travelingbags.
"He must belong to a rich family," he thought. "How then does he chanceto be here so far from the home of other Americans, with only a black manas his companion?"
As if reading his thoughts, the other boy began to speak. "My uncle," hesaid, "has travelled much. He wishes me to know the world as he knows it.He is especially anxious for me to know much of Central America and herproducts. You see I am to be--" He paused, did not finish the sentence,stared away at the moon for a moment, then said quietly, as if thesentence he had not finished had really never been begun, "Uncle has hadbut one rule in all his travels: wherever a native, one who has alwayslived in the land he is visiting, will go, he will follow. That is theonly rule he has laid down for me. My Carib is a native of this land. Yousaw how wonderfully he performed to-day."
Pant nodded.
"Wherever the Carib will go, I may follow."
A question leaped into Pant's mind, "Would the Carib venture again intothe fear inspiring Maya cave?" He doubted it, yet he wished very much toreturn. He did not wish to go alone, had hoped that his new found friendmight return with him. The story he heard that night as he sat before theruins of that ancient home greatly strengthened his determination torevisit the cave.
No place could be better fitted for the telling of a tale of buccaneersand Spanish gold than that scene of ruins beneath the golden moon.
It was the last Don himself who told it. He told it all in Spanish, withmany a dramatic gesture, but Kirk, who appeared to understand Spanish aswell as he did his mother tongue, interpreted so skillfully that itseemed to Pant that the aged Don, with his venerable beard and coal blackeyes, was telling the story directly to him.
And this was the tale he told:
Soon after gold had been brought to Europe from the New World and therush for riches had begun, Ramon Salazar, who had amassed a comfortablefortune as a trader in old Madrid, but in whose veins coursed the spiritof the Crusaders, sold all his possessions and, having invested them intrade goods, sailed for America.
He landed on the east coast of Central America, but soon made his wayover the difficult trail that led to the Pacific.
Ramon Salazar was a man of honor. He did not go in search of Aztec gold,nor did he lend aid to those shameful robberies of natives that still lieblack on the pages of Spanish-American history.
Having made his way to the west coast, where he hoped to be forever safefrom British and Scotch buccaneers, he set up a trading post andprospered.
Having learned of the rich pearl fisheries, he made a study of the matterand at last fitted out a schooner for the purpose of pearl fishing.Hiring divers and securing the protection of a Spanish man-of-war, helingered long over those shallow waters whose submerged sandbars wererich with pearl bearing mussels.
He prospered again. Some pearls were sold, but the richest and choicestwere kept in a box of beaten silver beneath the berth in his ownstateroom. The room was not left unguarded night or day.
"Some bright morning," Ramon Salazar was fond of saying, "I shall takethat box and sail away for sunny Spain. Then who cares what furtherriches the New World may still hold? But first," he always added, "I musthave more pearls, larger pearls, a great pearl of pearls."
So he lingered, until one day a startling thing happened. The east coasthad long been infested by buccaneers. The west had been free. But now,out of a clear sky, one day as Ramon Salazar dined with the commander ofthe man-of-war, a boat load of marauders boarded the pearl fishingschooner, overpowered those on board, hoisted sail, and firing a shotacross the bow of the man-of-war, they took to sea. And on board thatschooner was Ramon Salazar's treasure of pearls.
"What sort of box was it that held the pearls?" Pant asked a bitbreathlessly.
"Oh, my boy," was the old Don's reply, "that was long ago. Who can say?It was of beaten silver, perhaps as long as a man's forearm, and as thickas such a box should be."
"It might be the box," the boy thought to himself. "Surely I must returnto the cave to-morrow."
"But to-morrow," he thought a moment later, "I cannot. There are othermatters which must be attended to. I must not forget my grandfather, myphotograph, and the chicle concession." He felt for the packet he hadpreserved so carefully. It was still safe.
"The bloody marauders did not succeed." The old Don's voice rose hig
hpitched and shrill. "God confounded them. The man-of-war fired a shotthat snapped their mainmast. They were captured. The treasure wasrestored.
"But my sire of many generations back fished for pearls no more. He tookhis box of pearls ashore. He did not return to Spain at once. Those wereperilous times upon the sea. He would wait.
"He waited too long. Morgan came." The Don was fairly shouting now."Morgan, the most bloodthirsty and cruel monster that ever sailed theSpanish Main. He came with many ships and two thousand men."
For a time after this he was silent. A first faint flush of light alongthe fringe of palms announced a new day.
"No," said the aged man, speaking more to himself than to them, "Morgandid not get the beaten silver box of pearls. Had he gotten it, one musthave known. He was a great braggart.
"When my sire heard of Morgan's approach, he put the box under his armand walked away into the jungle. He knew the jungle well. He could nothave gotten lost in it. Yet he never returned. Somewhere--" He arose tofling his arms wide in a dramatic gesture, "somewhere in this jungle thebox of beaten silver with the wealth of every Salazar within, lieshidden."
He resumed his seat. Light came more and more. Exhausted, the ancient Donfell asleep. But Pant stared at the dawn. He was thinking of the timewhen he might return to the Maya cave, and what he might find there whenthat day came.
And then, of a sudden, his thoughts took a fresh turn. He smiled as hethought of the strange code he had improvised at the spur of the momentbefore leaving his grandfather's office to plunge in the jungle, and thecurious note he had left for Johnny Thompson. Had Johnny returned? Had hefound the note? Had he been able to read it? What had kept Johnny solong? What was to happen? Were their paths that had run side by side solong to diverge at last?
Had he but known it, Johnny was at this moment planning a task which wasto bring them close together, yet to keep them apart for many days tocome. Such are the strange, wild chances of fate.