They were nearing Belize. The white houses with their red roofs showed in the distance. And, joy of joys! There to the left was theTorentiariding at anchor.
Still there was much to fear. She might at any moment weigh anchor and put out to sea.
“And after all,” he said to himself, “what am I to do? By this time the chicle is stowed away. Dare I make a clean breast of my story? I wouldn’t dare trust them. What then? I must go with the ship to New York. But I have no money. Who is to pay my passage?” Surely here was a situation.
“I will find a way. I must!”
And in the end he did. Sailing time was only a half hour off when he climbed the rope ladder to the deck of theTorentia.
“Hello, brother,” said the purser, looking at his bandaged head. “What revolution did you come from? Did they make you President or only commander of the navy?”
“Neither,” said Pant with a grin that went far. “I want to go to New York.”
“Got any money?”
“No.”
“Can’t go.”
“That last shipment of chicle you took on board belonged to my grandfather. I’ll wire him for money in New York.”
“There’s lots of broke Americans down here. They’ve all got rich relatives.”
“I’ll prove it.” Sitting down upon the hatch, Pant told things about Colonel Longstreet that went far to prove that he at least was a boon companion of the old man.
“Guess you’re square,” said the purser at last. “Anyway, I’ll take a chance. Steward will fix you up later.”
By careful inquiry Pant learned that the chicle had been stored beneath the forward hatch. The hatch was kept open. There were twenty thousand bunches of bananas on board. They must have air. By leaning far over the hatch he could see ends of the chicle bags. Was the one he wanted there?
“Can’t be sure,” he warned himself. “Too dark down there. Have to get closer,” he said. “Will, too, after a while. See if I don’t.”
On the dock at Porte Zelaya, the task of loading bananas was at last progressing. At regular intervals all that long forenoon and well into the day, the little engine with its string of cars came puffing and rattling down the narrow gauge track. With its cars groaning under the great loads of green which it brought, it came to a halt on the dock. There, in exact imitation of the ants that had entertained Johnny on the previous day, the barefooted, perspiring Caribs seized upon the precious fruit, to pass it from hand to hand and store it carefully away in the hold of the ship.
Johnny, with an eye out for trouble, was everywhere. Now on the dock, now on the train and now in the heart of the banana plantation, his keen eye took in everything. Yet no trouble came. A few disconsolate Spanish banana workers hung about. Such of these as seemed willing to render honest service Johnny set to work.
Dressed in the simplest of garb, cotton shirt, khaki trousers and high-topped boots, Johnny nevertheless drew forth many a covert smile from the black Caribs, for he wore at his belt not one machete, but two—one on either side, and none of the Caribs had ever before seen a man carry two such weapons.
The sun was hanging low over the storm wrecked banana plantation, their task was well nigh completed when Johnny, seeing some straggling young banana plants growing in a half cleared patch to the right of the track and believing that here he might find a few superb bunches, hurried away down a narrow deer trail.
He had reached the nearest bunch of bananas and was about to cut it down when something sprang at him.
His first thought, as his heart went racing and he dropped to earth with the quickness of a cat, was that he had come close to the lair of a jaguar.
This thought was dispelled by the white gleam of a blade.
“Diaz!” he told himself. “And we are alone. There is to be a battle after all, a battle, perhaps to the death, with weapons which he has been familiar with since a child.”
One thought gave him courage as, springing away to the right, fighting for time to draw a blade, hotly pursued by the panting Spaniard, he rounded a great mahogany tree.
Having drawn his right hand blade, he took a stand in a raised spot offering some slight advantage.
His crafty opponent did not rush him. Instead he attempted to outmaneuver him by springing first to right, then to left, to at last completely circle him.
“You’ll not win by that,” thought Johnny as the blood still pounded at his temples. “That is like boxing.”
This maneuvering gave him time for a few darting thoughts as to how the affair was to end. If he were killed, what then? He hoped his body might be found at once. Madge Kennedy would never consent to the ship’s starting without him, dead or alive. That he knew well enough. He wanted this, his last undertaking, to succeed, wanted it desperately.
“Somehow I must outmaneuver him,” he thought. At once his mind turned to that extra blade.
There was no time for drawing it, for of a sudden his opponent, with blade lifted high, sprang squarely at him. Had Johnny been beneath that blade when it fell, his skull must have been split. With skill acquired as a boxer, he leaped away and the machete, slipping from the Spaniard’s unnerved hand, dropped harmless on the moss.
There was no time for Johnny to seize his opponent’s blade. There was opportunity to draw his left hand blade. Draw it he did.
The expression on the Spaniard’s dark and angry face as he found himself facing two blades was strange to see. Plainly he was puzzled and nonplussed. He had fought and beyond doubt done for more than one man who, like himself, wielded a single machete. But what of this boy who seemed at home with two?
He wasted little time in thought, but springing with a twisting glide, he attempted to throw Johnny off his guard. In this he was not successful.
For a full quarter of an hour, battling, perspiring, crossing blades, bending, thrusting, each striving for an advantageous opening, the two men fought on.
Then a sudden catastrophe threatened. On stepping backward Johnny caught his heel in a tie-tie vine that grew low to the ground. The next instant, with the Spaniard all but on top of him, he went crashing to earth.
With a look that was terrible to see, the Spaniard aimed what he meant to be a final blow.
A hush hung over the jungle. The blade came swinging down. But not too fast. As if dodging a boxer’s blow, Johnny shot his head to one side. Burying itself a half blade’s length in the ooze, the knife struck there. Nor did it come away when the frantic Spaniard pulled at it. It had become firmly embedded in the buried stump of a mahogany tree.
The next instant the Spaniard felt himself lifted bodily in air. Then with senses reeling he came crashing down.
When he came to himself he found himself bound hand and foot. After crashing him to earth, Johnny had made use of the tie-tie vine which had come near bringing him to his end. With it he had bound his opponent hand and foot.
“You villain! You dirty dog!” Johnny hissed in his ear. “I should kill you. You have no right to live, you who strike when a man is down. But I will spare you. The ants may crawl over you for a few hours. After that I will send some one.”
Gathering up three blades, souvenirs of the expedition, he disappeared into the brush.
Ten hours later, laden to capacity with the golden harvest of the tropics, theNorth Starpointed her prow toward the north, while the Caribs, now crowded into pit-pans and sailboats, headed for home, lifting their voices in song-like chants.
Only one little thing occurred to interrupt theNorth Star’spassage out of the Caribbean Sea into the open ocean. The evening was calm. They chanced upon a sailing boat lying becalmed and helpless in the midst of the sea. On the deck of the boat was a prosperous looking man. Short and stout, and with a very red face, he looked the part of a very busy man who thought well of his importance in the world of affairs, and who had by some chance been caught in an eddy from which he could not well extricate himself.
He requested that they take him aboard.
Johnny told him that he was not sure that coming aboard the steamer would serve his purpose. The man insisted; in fact he appeared to act as though he owned theNorth Star. So aboard he came.
“What boat is this?” he demanded.
“TheNorth Star,” said Johnny quietly.
“When did we charter her?”
“When did who charter her?”
“The Fruit Company, of course.” The man’s tone was overbearing.
“You didn’t.” Johnny’s tone was still quiet. “I did.”
The man sniffed the air. “Bananas!” he said. “I am President of the Fruit Company, and in that capacity I demand to know what is the business of this steamer in these waters.”
Johnny’s heart suddenly sprang up into his throat. He tried to speak and could not. His head whirled. The President of the great corporation here on board his ship! The very man who had the power to make or break not alone him, but Kennedy and Madge as well. The thing seemed impossible!
“F—fruit,” he stammered. “She carries fruit. Bananas, and for—forbidden fruit and—and things like that.”
He knew he was talking like an idiot, but for the life of him he could not talk sense. Little wonder. He was having his first little chat with a millionaire, but it was not to be his last.
“Do you mean to say,” said the magnate who had been taken on board theNorth Star, “that this ship is loaded with bananas from Central America, and that it is not chartered by our Company?”
“Bananas and grapefruit.” Johnny was gaining control of himself. What if this were a millionaire? What if it was in his power to make or break them? He couldn’t very well do that before they arrived in New York, and that metropolis was a long way off.
“Then, sir,” said the capitalist, “you have been trespassing. This is forbidden cargo.”
“Who forbids it?”
Without answering the man stared at him for a moment. His next remark was guarded.
“You couldn’t get a cargo anywhere along the coast without bribing some one or taking the cargo by force.”
Hot words leaped to Johnny’s lips. He was no thief. He had bribed no one. He left them unsaid.
Instead, he watched the sailing boat, from which the man had been taken, fade in the distance.
“We’ll let it stand at that,” he said quietly. “In the meantime, where were you going?”
“Going from Bacaray to Belize in that worthless sailboat manned by spotted Caribs. My motor boat was wrecked in the storm. The sail boat was becalmed, and there we were. Lay there for ten hours.”
“Belize?” Johnny wrinkled his brow. He did not wish to touch at this capitol of British Honduras. The Fruit Company was strong there. Who could tell but that fruit inspectors or health inspectors, in sympathy with the Fruit Company, perhaps bribed by them, would hold his ship off those shores until his bananas were overripe and ruined.
“Having him on board makes it worse,” he told himself. Again his brow wrinkled.
A happy thought struck him.
“You are planning to stay in Belize for some time?”
“Going back to New York on our boat theArion. She was to touch at Belize. Took on her load at Puerte Baras.”
Johnny heaved a sigh of relief. “TheArionsailed six hours ago. It gives me great pleasure to offer you my stateroom and a passage to New York.”
Johnny’s smile irritated the man. His face turned red. He seemed about to choke.
“You—you’ll touch at Belize!” he stormed.
“Belize,” said Johnny calmly, “is four hours off our course. We are headed for the open sea, and eventually for New York. I don’t like to seem pig-headed, nor over important, but we are not going to alter our course.”
In this he was wrong. He was destined to alter his course in a manner that was pleasing to no one.
“You will take me to Belize or I will have you up in the Marine Court.”
“You’ll not have much of a case,” said Johnny. “You were adrift. We picked you up at your own request. The law allows us to charge you for your passage to our own port. We’ll pass that up. You may as well make yourself comfortable. We will dock at New York in good time.”
“A very cold day when you dock in New York with this—”
The man checked his speech with difficulty, then turning on his heel, went stamping down the deck.
He had said enough. Johnny guessed that he had a scorpion on board.
“When the time comes he’ll bite,” he told himself.
For a moment he considered turning about and heading for Belize. This thought was dismissed in a moment.
“Won’t do it,” he told himself shortly. “That would double his chances of defeating us. If he didn’t tie us up in Belize, he’d wire New York and his entire pack would be upon us. As it is he can’t get off a word before he reaches New York. That gives us a fighting chance.”
“Looks as if Providence was kind in sending him to us,” he added.
He turned and hurried forward to prepare his stateroom for the Unwilling Guest, and there was a smile on his face.
* * * * * * * *
“It really isn’t necessary to tell all you know.” Kennedy said this in a friendly drawl, as he sat beside Johnny on the forward deck. Madge Kennedy was there too. Johnny had persuaded the old man to come along with him on theNorth Star. “The passage,” he had argued, “will cost you nothing. Captain Jorgensen is coming back for that cargo of cocoanuts and chicle. He’ll be glad to bring you down. You may be able to help me a lot in disposing of the fruit. Anyway, the trip will do you good.”
So here they were, three good pals, an old man, a young man and a girl.
Johnny did not reply to Kennedy’s remark about not telling all you know.
“I told a man once the location of a mahogany tract I meant to buy,” Kennedy went on. “It was good mahogany, some of it six feet through, five thousand feet to the tree. I told that man and he went before me and bought it. I talked too much then. I’ve learned better.”
“That Unwilling Guest of yours,” he drawled after a time, “that President of the Fruit Company, has been on board twenty-four hours and has never showed his head out of his stateroom. Even pays the steward to bring his meals to him. That right?”
Johnny nodded.
“Nice, friendly sort of a millionaire. That right? Perhaps he thinks we’re not worth talking to.”
“Johnny,” the old man laid a hand gently on the boy’s knee, “any man is worth talking to—the poorest and most degraded has something to say. If he can’t tell you how to live, he can tell you hownotto live, and that’s sometimes most important.”
Leaning forward, he shaded his eyes to scan the horizon.
Johnny did not so much as wonder what he saw there. The sea was perfectly calm. Bits of seaweed floated here and there. A seagull skimmed low to drop like a single feather upon the water, then to rise and float away in the air.
Johnny’s eyes lingered first upon the sea, then upon the girl, Madge Kennedy, who sat close beside him. He thought he had never known a finer girl. Brave and strong, good color, clear eyes, a clearer skin, strong as a man, yet tender hearted and kind, giving her spare hours to her grandfather, yet alert and alive to every sport and joy of life, she seemed worthy of a place in a great drama or a book.
“That friend of ours,” said Kennedy, resuming his seat, “he will come out of his hole sooner or later. Then he’s going to talk. Who will he talk to? To an old man. That’s me. Everyone talks to an old man if he has a chance. Did you ever notice that, Johnny?”
“No, I—”
“Fact, nevertheless. You watch. Natural enough, I guess. When a man gets old, he loses the burning desire he might have had to become rich or famous. He gets to feeling that he’s about done his bit, and that it would be nice and pleasant to sit beside the road and give the younger ones a little advice. Don’t you ever forget that, Johnny. When an old man talks, you listen. It’s just as I said, if he can’t tell you how to live, he can tell you how not to live.”
Again he paused to stare at the sky. Wetting a finger, he held it up to the air.
“Wind’s changed,” he muttered to himself.
“When he comes out,” he went on as if he had been talking all the time, “when this exclusive sort of millionaire President of the Fruit Company talks, I’m not going to tell him I’m part owner of this cargo. And you needn’t either. That way he’ll think me a harmless old man with a fair young granddaughter, and he may tell me things we need to know.
“Johnny!” he exclaimed, springing suddenly to his feet. “I think we better run for it.”
“Ru—run for it,” Johnny stammered in astonishment. “Run from what?”
“The storm.”
“What storm? The sea’s calm, smooth as a floor.”
“Can’t you see? Can’t you smell it?” The old man sniffed the air. “But then, of course, you wouldn’t. Me, I’ve lived here on this sea always. I know things in advance. We’re going to have a storm, a regular humdinger, a mahogany splitter, and if we don’t run, if we can’t convince the captain we ought to run, I don’t know what’s to come of us.”
“Look!” said Madge, springing up. “There’s a steamer. See the smoke. You can make her out too.”
Kennedy unslung his binoculars.
“That,” he said after a moment of close scrutiny, “is theArion. She’s the Company’s steamer that our Unwilling Guest was to sail on.”
“He’ll be all excited if he sees her,” said Johnny.
“Little good it will do him,” grumbled Kennedy. “We’ll be far enough from theArionby night.”
He hurried away to impart his all but miraculous knowledge of the coming storm to the captain.
The sea was still calm, though here and there, racing away with the speed of the wind, like hurried messengers, dark ripples sped across its surface. It was then that the Unwilling Guest left his stateroom for the first time.
Perhaps he was so well accustomed to sea travel that he could guess that their course had been altered. However that may be, he went at once to the bridge. There, after studying the instruments for a moment, he turned an angry face toward the stocky skipper.
“What sort of course is this for New York,” he stormed. “You are not headed for New York.”
“Maybe not,” said the skipper, unperturbed. “Storm’s coming. We were due for the center of it. We’re running.”
“Running! And not a ripple!” The magnate’s voice was full of scorn.
As for the sturdy captain, he knew the sea. The scorn of the millionaire meant nothing to him. Quite unperturbed, he paced the deck and watched the roll of the storm clouds that mounted higher and higher along the horizon.
At the bottom of the companionway the capitalist found Kennedy sitting placidly looking away at the sea. Like Captain Jorgensen, he had lived long. One storm more or less did not matter.
True to Kennedy’s prophesy, the rich man sat down beside him and began to talk. Who can face a storm without a companion?
“Going to storm, the captain tells me.”
“Yes,” rumbled Kennedy. “Be a mighty tough one over there.” He poked a thumb toward the west. “Over there where theArionis travelling.”
The other man started. “That’s our ship.”
“She didn’t change her course. Kept straight on. Good ship, though. May weather it all right.”
“Do you mean to say,” the rich man squirmed uneasily in his chair, “that it will be as bad as that?”
“Might be—over there.” Again Kennedy’s thumb jerked.
The topic of a man’s conversation is very frequently determined by his surroundings and by the events that are transpiring about him. Was it thought of the storm and what it might mean to him that directed this rich man’s conversation, or was it a casual remark thrown out by the strange old man who sat beside him?
“See those two bits of seaweed out yonder, tossing on the waves?” Kennedy drawled. “Well, supposing one was you and the other me, and there wasn’t any ship. Supposing I had houses and banks and bonds and you were a plain ordinary seaman with nothing but a chest full of old clothes. Do you suppose I’d have any better chance with the sea than you? Sort of strange, isn’t it, when you think about it? Makes you feel unimportant and, and futile, you might say.”
For a long time the man who owned buildings and banks, bonds and many ships upon the sea did not answer. When he did speak the thoughts he gave utterance to might not seem to have been an answer, and then again they might have.
“Our times,” he said in a tone he had not used before, low, well modulated, modest and slow, “are very strange. Men, many men, most men perhaps, have come to think of capital as a great monster that always crushes the weak.
“But is that true? Take this Central America. It is true that we, the Fruit Company, have a monopoly of the banana importing business. But what was Central America before we came? Where miles on miles of bananas grow there was wilderness. Where naked half-savage people hunted deer and wild pigs, or sucked the milk from cocoanuts, there now lives a happy, reasonably prosperous and contented people. Who changed it all? Did not the Fruit Company do it?
“I suppose,” he said after a moment, “that our young friend, this Johnny Thompson who has somehow stolen a march on us and gotten hold of a cargo of fruit, thinks he’s a young hero, a benefactor to mankind. I wonder if he is right.”
“I wonder,” rumbled Kennedy.
Time had been when Kennedy would have engaged this rich man of the world in sharp debate. He was old now. He had learned the futility of debate. Besides, he was greatly interested in the approaching storm.
At midnight Johnny Thompson found himself wrapped in a blanket and lying upon a plank, endeavoring in vain to snatch a few winks of sleep.
He found himself now standing almost upright on his feet and now tilted in the other direction until his very pockets seemed about to turn wrongside out.
“Some storm!” he muttered.
Canvas boomed above him. The seamen had stretched a canvas over the hatch to keep out the spray. He was lying on that part of the hatch that had not been uncovered. Having given up his stateroom to the Unwilling Guest, he had been obliged to take a bunk below. During such a storm as they were now weathering, the air below was not to be endured.
Unable to sleep, he allowed his mind to wander. Had they indeed missed the heart of the storm, or were they in it now? How was the storm to end? He thought of the black rolling waves, and shuddered.
“If we weather the storm safely, what then? Will we come to dock safely in New York? Will we be able to sell our cargo? Or will we once more face defeat? And what of theArion?”
Scrambling to his feet, he plunged off the hatch, rolled to the deck, got caught in a dash of foam, struggled to his feet, caught the spray in his face, outrode a wave that threatened to carry him overboard, then made a dash for the wireless room.
“Had—had any message from theArion?” He struggled to gain his breath.
“About ten minutes ago,” said the young wireless operator. “Here it is.”
“Arion laboring hard,” Johnny read.
“That all?”
“All but—Wait. Listen!”
He thrust a head set over the boy’s ears. Then his face went white.
“Arionleaking amidship. Settling by the bow.”
For ten minutes, with the ship leaping up and down beneath them, with the thud of waves shaking her from stem to stern, they waited.
“She’s gone; theArion’sgone down!” said the young wireless man at last, mopping his brow.
“Say!” He started as if struck by a ball. “That pick up we made, that rich man was going on that boat, wasn’t he?”
“He didn’t,” said Johnny.
“He’s in luck.”
For a moment there was silence.
“I suppose you know,” said Johnny, “that the Captain must be notified. We couldn’t have helped them; too far away. Have to tell him. But our Unwilling Guest, no use telling him, not just yet. No use to disturb folks needlessly.”
“No,” said the young wireless man, “no use.”
Then for a time they sat catching the crash of the storm and wondering what ship would be next.
Fifteen minutes more of an ominous silence which told plainer than words that the steamshipArionwith all on board had gone to her final resting place at the bottom of the sea. The very thought of it made Johnny feel sick and faint. The shrill scream of wind in the rigging became to him the cries of those who called in vain for aid.
“Couldn’t we reach them?” he asked the wireless man. “There might be some we could save.”
“Not a chance.” The wireless man shook his head gravely. “Two or three hundred miles away. If we tried it we’d more than likely go to the bottom. Besides, there are two other ships closer than ours. I caught their answer to the S. O. S. They can’t do anything either. TheArion’sgone. God rest their souls!”
“Give me your report,” said Johnny. “I’ll take it to the Captain. Got to get out of here.” He was shaking like a leaf. As he shut his eyes he could see forms battling with the black waves.
“Here it is.”
Taking the paper, Johnny threw the door open and shot from the cabin.
The cool damp air revived his spirits. The battle he fought in making the bridge over the slippery water-washed deck put the old fighting spirit into him.
“We’ll make it,” he told himself stoutly. “This ship won’t go down. She’s Norwegian built. Done by the sons of ancient Norsemen. Her every plank and beam is selected—flawless and strong.”
The grizzled skipper received his message without comment. On such a night one expects anything.
Battling his way back to the main deck, Johnny crept forward to the main cabin. There, he remembered, was a long mess table, a cushioned seat or two along the wall, and some chairs screwed down to the deck.
“Might get a bit of rest,” he told himself, yawning.
As he threw the door open a great gust of wind caught him and sent him in with such force that he went sprawling on the floor.
Grumbling to himself, he struggled to his feet. What was his surprise then to find himself looking into the eyes of Madge Kennedy.
“I—I couldn’t stand my stateroom all alone on such a night,” she told him. “I hoped some one would be down here, so I came.”
“I am glad you did,” Johnny struggled to a place opposite her, then looked across the table at her.
“You’re not used to storms at sea,” he said, noting the weary expression on her face.
“Not this kind.”
“Nor anyone else I guess. Don’t worry. We’ll weather it. We’ll be in New York one of these days with our cargo. Then the sun will be shining on both sides of the street.”
“Will it, Johnny?” A wistful look came into her eyes.
“Do you know, Johnny,” she went on, “I’ve been thinking to-night of our orchard and our jungle. I dreamed a bad dream last night. Dreamed that we couldn’t sell the fruit, couldn’t go back to our orchard and our jungle because there was no money.
“That would be pretty bad, particularly for Grandfather. He’s lived there since he was a very young man. He loves it and he loves his black Caribs.
“You know, Johnny,” her eyes became suddenly dreamy, her voice mellow, “I’ve read in books how people who live in other lands love their homes, their stone castles and their thatched cottages, their apple orchards, their groves and their tiny clustered villages. All that sounds fine, but very far away. For we too came to love our homes in the tropical jungle. To see sunset redden behind the tops of the tangled jungle, to hear the night birds call, to see the shadow of palms lengthen and lengthen, then to feel the damp of evening kiss your cheeks. Oh yes, Johnny, there is a charm in our land. And to us it is home.”
“You’ll go home,” said Johnny with suddenly renewed determination, “and you’ll go with that ancient alligator-skin traveling bag of your grandfather’s bursting with bales of money. Never fear.”
Reassured by his words, the girl bent her head forward on the table and fell asleep.
As for Johnny, he did not sleep. He waited, watched and dreamed.
The motion of the ship was something tremendous. Now she rose high in air to strike square into a great world of water; and now, lifting, lifting, lifting, she appeared to start on a flying trip to the stars, only at last to put her prow down as gently as a child drops his foot on a pebbly shore.
“She’s a grand old ship,” he thought to himself.
These were not his only thoughts. He thought of the great, gray-whiskered man and his granddaughter sitting there before him, the man who had given much to humanity and asked little in return.
Then he thought of the other one, their Unwilling Guest. “Providence,” he whispered suddenly. “Providence took a hand. If we had not picked him up; if he had sailed on theArionhe would now be at the bottom of the sea. Wonder what he will think of that?
“Providence,” he mused, “and back of Providence, God. God must have some work for that man to do, some great good work.”
Morning broke at last and with it the storm passed. The wind went down. The sun came out. The sea was a thousand mountain ranges rolled into one, and all tossing about, rising and falling, like a new-born world.
The sea calmed. Hazy clouds drifted along the horizon. TheNorth Star, somewhat battered by the storm, but still a very seaworthy vessel, held steadily on her course.
The Unwilling Guest came on deck. He seemed weak and somewhat thoughtful. No one had whispered a word to him of the ship that had gone to her grave, but the very force of the storm, the thundering peril of it had been enough to make any man thoughtful. Still he asked no questions, ventured no remarks.
The Captain of theTorentia, the ship on which Pant had secured passage in so strange a manner, was a wary old seadog. On first indication of storm he had put in behind one of those small islands that dot the seaboard, and had there lain in safety until the storm had passed. This does not mean, however, that there were no interesting occurrences on board that ship to be recorded. As yet Pant had no certain knowledge regarding that thread marked gunnysack and its rich contents of pearls. Until he had made a try for that he could not rest.
To get a look at the chicle stored there in the forward hold was not so simple a task as Pant had at first supposed it to be. To begin with, it was a long way down to it from the deck where the few passengers were allowed to promenade. No companionway or ladder led to it. When it was necessary to take the temperature of the space where the bananas were stored the simple expedient of lowering a thermometer by a string was resorted to.
“Have to go down there some way, I suppose,” he told himself. “Hand over hand perhaps. Trouble is, I have no rope, and besides there is always some one hanging about.”
It was a strange situation. He wanted very much to go down there and inspect the chicle, yet he had no legal right to do so.
“It’s not as if I meant to do anything that’s wrong,” he told himself. “If I told them what I wanted, there’s not a man on board but would help me, help me a lot too much. That’s the trouble. I dare not trust them.”
On the second day out, he discovered a loose rope coiled up close by the hatch. But all that day seamen were working or lolling about close to the hatch.
“Try it at night,” he told himself. “Use a flashlight.”
He did “try it at night.” He met with little success. Scarcely had he lowered himself to the bottom and thrown on his electric torch, than the night watch threw a more powerful light upon him, then shouted down:
“What you doin’? Come up out of there!”
There was but one thing to be done—to come.
The boy found his knees shaking as he climbed the rope. He had a wholesome fear of ship’s discipline. On the high seas a captain is a king. What would be done with him now?
To his great surprise, nothing was done. The night watch took the affair as a boyish prank, and after a short lecture, let him go. That, however, ended his attempts to examine the chicle at sea.
“Have to wait until the stuff is in the warehouse,” he told himself. “It will take some quick moves after that. I’ll have to see some one high up in the Central Chicle office and get permission to make the search. Shouldn’t wonder if I’ll have to tell some one the whole story. Might be safe enough. Suppose it would.”
After these settled conclusions he gave himself over to enjoyment of wonders of the ship and the changing mysteries of the sea.
So, freed from the grip of the storm, the two steamers smoked away toward a common port, New York. On board each was a somewhat worried boy, worried but eager; worried about the outcome of their adventure, eager for its end. TheTorentia, being a faster boat, docked first.
Fortune was with Pant for once. Scarcely had the ship docked when he went springing down the gangplank. The doctor had looked at his tongue, the immigration official glanced over his papers, then set him free.
To find the offices of the Central Chicle Company he discovered was something of a task. Once there he found himself confronted by a long room full of clicking typewriters and a smiling but determined girl at the telephone switchboard.
“Mr. Daniels,” he was informed, “is in conference. Will you wait? Have you an appointment?”
He, of course, had none.
“’Fraid you won’t be able to see him to-day.” The telephone girl threw back her bobbed hair. “He goes out for golf at four.”
“Golf!” exclaimed Pant. “Tell him I must see him.”
“I’ll tell him. But I’m afraid it’s no use.”
Mopping the perspiration from his brow, the boy sat down. A half hour passed; three-quarters. A buzzer sounded on the telephone girl’s desk. She hurried back to a mahogany walled office at the back of the room. A moment later she reappeared, carried a sheaf of papers to a typist, then returned to her post. Not once did she glance at Pant.
“Forgotten me,” was his mental comment. “That’s the President’s office she went into. In the jungle we don’t wait for things. We go after them. I’m off!”
With a quick elastic step, he cleared the low gate, and before a score of pairs of startled eyes, marched straight for the mahogany walled office.
“What’s this?” a large, red cheeked man sprang to his feet as he entered. Two others at a table looked up enquiringly. “Who sent you?”
“No one sent me. I came.”
“What for?” The man’s face showed nothing. Pant felt uncomfortable.
“Chic—why, I—my grandfather shipped some chicle.”
“Chicle. Go to the adjusting bureau. Can’t you see I’m in conference?” The man’s voice rose.
“But—you don’t understand. You—I—” Pant was becoming more and more confused.
“Understand? Of course I understand. You want an adjustment on chicle. Can’t you go where I tell you to?”
The boy was about to give up hope when a familiar voice from behind spoke his name.
“Why Pant, old chap! How did you get up here?” the voice said.
Turning, he found himself staring into the eyes of Kirk, his boy pal of that first adventure in the Maya cave.
“Is this some young friend of yours?” The man at the desk asked, turning to Kirk. His tone had suddenly grown warm and friendly.
“Why yes, Uncle, a very good friend from Central America. We had some adventures together. Remember the Maya cave? This is Pant.”
“Ah, Pant. Glad to meet you.” The man put out a hand. “Tell you what, Pant, I’ll turn you over to my nephew. He’ll help you out. If there is anything he can’t do, and I can, come around.”
“Thanks, I—oh!” Pant choked up, flushed, then backed awkwardly out of the office. His mind was in a whirl. So that was it, his companion at the home of the old Don was a favored nephew of the main stockholder in the Central Chicle Company.