While Jordan was preparing his telegraphic report, Bob and his chums started in quest of lodgings in the town. They finally found rooms in a small hotel, dignified by the name of International, and there they established their temporary headquarters and rested for several days.
One evening, however, Carl, who sometimes was inclined to be sentimental and romantic, borrowed a guitar from a Spanish waiter at the hotel, and went out to serenade Ysabel Sixty, in true Spanish fashion.
He managed to escape, unnoticed by either Bob or Dick, and without confiding his purpose to them; so, well pleased with himself, he strolled on through the quiet streets.
It was a rare evening in old Belize. The moon was like a big yellow topaz pinned to a cushion of blue-black velvet, and around it lay the stars like scattered diamonds. Carl could not see the moon or stars very distinctly, for it was so beastly hot that the perspiration trickled into his eyes and half blinded him.
The zephyrs, laden with spicy fragrance from orange groves and pineapple fields, breathed softly through the palms; but Carl could not enjoy the zephyrs, for a cloud of mosquitoes was pestering him.
The house before which Carl paused was a whitewashed bungalow. Between the bungalow and the street ran a high brick wall. The iron gate leading into the yard was locked, and Carl climbed the wall.
Carl was not very well acquainted with the lay of the land in Belize. By an error of judgment he hadgot into the wrong yard, and by another conspiracy of circumstances he began pouring out his enraptured soul under the window of a room in which Captain Reginald Pierce, of the local constabulary, was trying to sleep. Miss Sixty was staying with relatives a block farther on, around the corner of the next street.
Utterly unaware of his mistake, Carl fought the discomforts of his situation and heroically burst into song.
Carl knew how to play the guitar, for he had once been a member of a knockabout musical team, and he could get music out of anything from a set of sleigh bells to a steam calliope. If he had been able to use his voice as well as he used the guitar, Captain Reginald Pierce would probably have slept on or even have been lulled into deeper slumber; but there were flaws in Carl’s youthful baritone.
Captain Reginald Pierce stirred uneasily, sat up suddenly in his bed, and knocked his high forehead against the iron bar that supported a canopy of mosquito netting. As he rubbed his temples and said things to himself, he listened with growing anger, and began forming a plan of campaign. There was a pitcher of water on a table in his room, a bulldog in the yard, and a valiant assistant in the form of Hadji Sing, his Hindu servant. Getting softly out of bed, the captain prepared for his attack on the enemy.
When Carl climbed over the wall he had dropped into the yard at the foot of a lemon tree. He had jarred the tree and a half-ripe lemon had dropped on him. This omen should have sent him away and postponed the serenade, but it did not.
After slapping at the mosquitoes and drawing his sleeve across his eyes, Carl went on picking the guitar, and singing manfully.
Just then the water descended. It was well aimedand Carl caught the whole of it. Probably there was no more than a couple of gallons, but Carl, for the moment, was under the impression that it was a tidal wave.
His song died out in a wheezy gurgle, and, for a moment, he was stunned. Then, suddenly, he realized that he had been insulted. Ysabel Sixty, the beautiful maiden who had captured his young fancy, had deliberately thrown—— But his thoughts were interrupted by a voice from the window, a voice that certainly was not Miss Sixty’s.
“By Jove! I’ll throw the pitcher at you, fellow, if you don’t clear out!”
Carl was dazed. He knew, then, that he had made a mistake. While he stood there, half drowned and trying to find his voice, the bark of an approaching dog came from the rear of the house.
Self-preservation is the first law of nature, and instantly it flashed over Carl that if he wanted to save himself he would have to run. Without standing on the order of his going, he whirled and fled toward the fence. The dog was close and rapidly drawing closer. Behind the dog came a white-turbaned figure that was urging the brute onward with strange language.
The front fence looked altogether too high for Carl, and he turned and made for a wall at the side of the yard. Just as he gained the foot of the barrier the dog was snapping at his heels.
“Dere!” he whooped, turning and smashing the guitar over the dog’s head; “how you like dot, hey?”
The dog was rebuffed, but not discouraged. Carl had gained a few valuable seconds, and he grabbed at a vine that covered the wall and climbed frantically upward. He heard a growl below him as he ascended, and felt a shock as the savage teeth closed in histrousers. The dog was heavy, his jaws were as strong as a steel trap, and as Carl hung wildly to the vine he knew that something would have to give way or else that he would be captured. It was with a feeling of joy, therefore, that he heard a tearing sound and experienced a sudden relief from his enforced burden. The next moment he was over the wall and floundering about in a thorny rosebush covered with beautiful blossoms. But the beautiful blossoms did not make so deep an impression on Carl as did the thorns.
As he rolled out of the bushes his language was intense and earnest; and when he got up in a cleared stretch of ground he felt a sudden coolness below the waist line that informed him fully of his predicament. He had left an important part of his apparel in the next yard.
“Vat luck!” he muttered. “Vat a laff Bob und Dick vill gif me! Vell, I can’t go pack py der hotel like dis! Vat shall I do?”
He paused to shake his fist in the direction of the yard he had just left. All was silent on the other side, and the man and the dog, Carl reasoned, must have gone back where they belonged.
A survey of the situation in the moonlight showed Carl another bungalow. It was not so pretentious as the house in the next inclosure, but its walls were as brightly whitewashed and the building stood out clearly against its background of shrubbery. The windows of the house were dark. But this was to be expected, as the hour was past midnight. The noise which Carl had made had not seemed to disturb the inmates.
“If I had der nerf,” thought Carl, “I vould go dere und ask der beople for somet’ing to fix my pants. But meppy I vouldt get soaked mit some more vater, und meppy dere is anodder tog. No, I vill go pack py derhodel und led Bob und Dick laff as mooch as dey vill.”
But luck was still against Carl; or, perhaps, in the inscrutable way whereby fate occasionally works in order to secure the greatest good for the greatest number, he was merely encountering obstacles in order to gain knowledge of a plot that had been leveled against Bob Steele.
Carl found a tall iron gate, set into the high front wall as snugly as a door in its casing. But the gate was locked. More than that, the wall could not be scaled, for there were no vines or near-by trees to offer a lift upward.
Carefully he made his way around all four sides of the inclosure, only to be balked at every point. Then he hunted for a ladder, a box, or some other movable thing on which he could stand while getting over the wall, but his search was fruitless.
“Vell,” he muttered, again moving toward the house, “I vill haf to shpeak mit somepody in der place und dry und ged oudt. I don’d vant to shday here undil morning.”
At the rear of the house he rapped. Although he pounded heavily, no one answered his summons. Alarmed by the thought that there was no one at home, he moved around to the front door and rapped again, still without effect. Next he tried the door. To his amazement he found it unlocked, and, when the door swung open, a blank darkness yawned beyond it.
“Hello, somepody!” Carl called, thrusting his head inside. “I’m not a t’ief, or anyt’ing like dot, but I’m in drouple. Hello! Come und led me oudt of der yardt, blease, if you vill be so kindt.”
His voice echoed rumblingly through the interior of the house, but won no response. Hesitatingly, Carlstepped across the threshold. He had matches in his pocket, and they had come through the recent deluge unharmed. With fingers none too steady he scratched one, held the flickering glow above him and peered around.
The next moment his startled eyes encountered an object on the floor that caused him to drop the match from his nerveless fingers and fall back gaspingly against the wall.