“You are in command, Senor General.”
“Caramba! Then, let us march! We can’t jump down those rocks, the swamp is even worse—and we won’t retreat before a lot of peons. Forward, Senor! We can at least use pistols if we need to!”
With which comforting assurance Herran handed one of his case bottles to David. This the latter retained, first joining his comrade in a final “salute,” declaring all the while that this kind of exercise had been unknown to him for years—a statement received by General Herran with the skepticism it deserved. The two horses were then brought into line and, with touch of whip and spur, commenced a scramble up the trail, at the top of which the front ranks of the peons were just visible.
As Herran had predicted, the travelers with whom they had to contest the right of way belonged to one of the volunteer regiments of Bogota peons bound for the Isthmus. At their head rode Pedro, “El Rey,” more dilapidated as to costume but more joyous of mood than on that memorable morning when he led his forces down the Calle de Las Montanas to be reviewed by the President of the Republic. He had parted with his blacking box and in place of it, hanging from his neck, was a rusty old sword that clanked dismally on the scarred and battered ribs of the solemn burro upon which he was mounted. Burros, as a rule, are patient animals, taking whatever comes, whether insult, ridicule, or cajolery, with unruffled temper, and this particular specimen of the long-suffering race evinced supreme indifference to the military honors that sat so weightily upon him. Pedro, however, was not unmindful of the distinctions he had won. Immediately behind him, borne by two of his trustiest lieutenants, floated the flag of the republic, itsred and yellow folds somewhat faded and dusty from the three days’ march, and flapping now in anything but defiant fashion. But it formed a good background to the enthusiasm of leadership that marked the bearing and illuminated the grimy features of Bogota’s ex-bootblack and, doubtless, helped keep up the courage and patriotism of his followers. The latter marched, for the most part, on foot and in such straggling lines as best suited them. When it first set out from Bogota the regiment had kept some sort of military order, but this had long since been abandoned, and the host of men and boys, some thousand in number, jostled each other and choked up the narrow trail in glorious confusion.
Having reached the top of the hill overlooking the sheltered ledge chosen by David and Herran for their impromptu celebration, the volunteers kept right on. Led by Pedro and his two banner-bearers, they plunged down the steep, winding trail, crowding upon each other, shouting and laughing, filling the narrow space with most unmilitary disorder. In the meantime the two horsemen tried their best to reach a point as near as possible to the top of the trail before the volunteers began the descent. In this they failed, and the inevitable collision with the front ranks of the peons took place half way up the hillside. Here they met Pedro and his immediate followers, behind whom pressed, with increasing energy, the whole rabble of peons. But the dejected burro, whose duty it was to carry the leader of these ragged cohorts to victory, refused to be hurried by those behind him. The more he was urged the greater was his deliberation in picking his way among the treacherous stones covering the trail. Thumps and blows failed to arouse his enthusiasm,and with every fresh difficulty presented by rock or sudden dip in the pathway, he stopped to take a careful survey of the surrounding obstacles before proceeding with his journey. Memories of past disaster had taught him the value of caution that a younger, less experienced burro might have failed to observe. But the horses of David and Herran, although ancient enough, were not afflicted with recollections of former mishaps, and so plunged into the ranks of the peons without regard for consequences.
“Hug the side of the road,” cautioned Herran in a low voice. “I’ll take the middle and try to distract the attention of these people from you.”
“Salute, Senor!” cried Pedro, attempting as courteous a greeting as his burro would allow. “What news from Panama?”
Not to be outdone in courtesy, Herran pulled back his horse from the folds of the flag into which he was patriotically heading, and offered his “pistol” to “El Rey.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Pedro, his eyes fairly snapping with astonishment; “it is General Herran! Bueno, Senor General, we go to bring Panama back to Colombia.”
“That is well,” replied the other, diplomatically ignoring the implied reproach; “with such brave men you will surely succeed, Senor Capitan.”
“And the Yankees?” queried Pedro, smacking his lips after a long draught from the General’s bottle.
“Doubtless you will find them in Panama.”
The news that this was General Herran, the man whom Panama had made famous, spread like wildfire among the volunteers, who crowded together excitedly, bent on hearing the latest bulletin from the land they were pledged torecapture. Shouts of amazement, indignation, derision echoed along the trail—expressions of hostility that might have appalled one less cool than Herran. But he pretended not to notice these demonstrations, and devoted himself to Pedro, who, he perceived, was moved by his flattery.
“It’s a bad business, Senor Capitan,” he assured him confidentially. “But the country is safe with such brave volunteers to defend it.”
“And you, Senor General, you fight with us?”
“It will be an honor,” graciously replied the hero of Panama. “But first I must see His Excellency, the President, in Bogota. I will tell him how you are hurrying to the rescue of the Isthmus.”
“Where are your soldiers?”
“Some of them you will meet on the way to Honda.”
“An officer was with you just now. Where is he?”
In the throng of volunteers surrounding them it was impossible to distinguish David, who had doubtless seized the opportunity created by the sudden recognition of Herran to force his way up the side of the trail as the General had suggested.
“Caramba!” exclaimed Herran. “He has gone on ahead. He knows the President awaits us and the despatches of great importance to the republic that we bring him. I must hurry. Pardon, Senor Capitan, if I am forced to leave you so quickly. Perhaps we meet soon again in Panama.”
With a fine show of deference, Herran saluted the King of the Bootblacks, whose eyes sparkled proudly at this recognition of his rank from a brother officer, and who signified his appreciation of the tribute by a wave of thehand to his followers and a command to them not to delay the General.
“Senores!” he shouted, “make way for the great Senor General! He comes for the Republic. After he has seen Don Jose, he will go with us to bring back Panama.”
The order was given with all the flourish that had won renown for Pedro as a polisher of boots and was received by the volunteers with their wonted cheerfulness and enthusiasm. Unfortunately, the burro who had the honor of carrying “El Rey” was so unappreciative of his rider’s eloquence that he allowed himself to be jostled into too close proximity with the bearers of the flag. He then became so hopelessly entangled in his country’s colors that, uttering a dismal bray, he was tumbled headlong down the slippery hill, dragging the amazed and protesting Pedro with him.
Profiting by this accident, General Herran spurred his own horse through the ranks of the volunteers, gaining at last, after much energetic pushing and shoving, the top of the hill. Here he paused to look back, with an inward chuckle, at the excited throng of men and boys from whom he had escaped, and to pick up again his fellow traveler, David. But David was nowhere to be seen. Herran expected to find him on the level space at the top of the hill; that he was not there filled him with anxiety. Reasoning, however, that if the volunteers had attacked David he would have heard of it, and convinced that the American was not with the mob he had just left, he set spurs to his horse, expecting to find him further on. After all, he argued, it was natural that a Yankee, traveling alone, should put as great a distance as possible between himself and these volunteers. But,whatever the explanation, David was not to be found. There were no cross trails from the main Bogota road into which he might have blundered, and his disappearance, therefore, became more of a puzzle as Herran traveled mile after mile, at the best speed of which his horse was capable, without trace of him.
In a way General Herran felt responsible for the safety of the man with whom he had been traveling, the more so that this man was a foreigner, belonging to a nation whose citizens were not welcome just then in Colombia. Had David been other than an American, Herran would have taken his disappearance, puzzling though it was, with the cheerful indifference peculiar to him. But the fact that he was an American, alone in a hostile country, appealed to a chivalrous strain in his nature, urging him to do the best he could for his rescue. Unfortunately, the solving of the simplest of problems was not in the General’s line, and he painfully turned the matter over and over without result, one way or the other. David, he told himself, had forced his way through the ranks of the volunteers without attracting attention. He felt sure of this because he had watched his ascent of the trail for a good part of the way. Hence, he could not be with the volunteers now. Only a few of the latter were mounted, and these marched in the front ranks where they had been carefully noted by Herran. If David had remained in the rear ranks of the regiment, voluntarily or as a captive, his horse would have made him conspicuous. Of course, during the commotion following the accident to Pedro and his burro almost anything might have happened; David might have been captured, bound and gagged, his horse taken away and he himself hiddenby the peons who held him prisoner in the hope of future ransom. But this was all too bewildering, too complex for Herran seriously to consider. Instead, he convinced himself that David had escaped the volunteers, that he was no longer behind him on the trail, that he must therefore be in front, and that to find him there was only one thing to do—push forward as fast as possible.
Acting on this, General Herran rode without stopping until nightfall, reaching just after dusk—dusk comes swiftly enough in the tropics—one of the primitive little hostelries kept for the accommodation of travelers to and from Bogota. Here, as is usual in such places, there was a large number of guests intending to spend the night. This posada, or inn, was a one-storied, rambling affair consisting of three rooms and a verandah sheltered by the overhanging eaves of a thatched roof. All the rooms were filled with people, most of them lying on mats spread on the floor; the verandah was similarly occupied. In the dim light from smoky lanterns it was difficult to tell who these people were. Herran, confident that David was among them, appealed to the proprietor, a stolid looking peon, for information.
“You have a Yankee here, Senor?”
“No, Senor.”
“A Yankee came to-day from Honda?”
“No, Senor.”
“He was riding alone to Bogota?”
“No, Senor.”
“A young man on a bay horse?”
“No, Senor.”
“Is there a foreigner here?”
“No, Senor.”
“A foreigner passed here to-day on a bay horse?”
“No, Senor.”
“Caramba, hombre! Have you ever seen a foreigner here?”
“No—yes, Senor.”
“To-day?”
“No, Senor.”
Exasperated by what he considered the stupidity of the landlord, Herran addressed, in a loud voice, the various guests who were preparing to pass the night on such improvised beds as they could get for themselves.
“Senores, I am looking for a young man, a foreigner, a Yankee, who is riding to Bogota on a bay horse. He must be here. Have you seen him?”
There was a confused murmur. A number of the men sat up on their mats and repeated energetically the landlord’s negative. Others grumblingly denounced all Yankees as robbers and disturbers of the country’s peace. One young man, dressed in the uniform of an army officer, recognizing Herran’s rank, politely offered to share his mat with him, suggesting, at the same time, that he could pursue his search to much better advantage in the morning. As further inquiries brought out nothing new, Herran accepted this officer’s hospitality, wearily resigning himself to the conclusion that David had been mysteriously spirited away, and was about to be shot by a lot of insane peons, led on by the ridiculous Pedro. So it seemed to him as he sank into a nightmare-ridden sleep.
Morning failed to bring the expected solution of the General’s difficulties. In the bedlam created by burros, horses, travelers—all trying to make their departure fromthe inn at the same early hour, and all finding their plans delayed by some fault in harness, mislaying of baggage, or other inconvenience peculiar to a four-footed conveyance—there was no sign of the missing David. A number of native merchants on their way from Bogota to the coast, who had lodged at the inn during the night, recognized Herran, and although their greetings were cordial, the oldtime friendliness was tempered by the uncertainty with which the average Colombian viewed this unfortunate officer’s part in the so-called Panama revolution. As news of his presence spread among the departing guests, General Herran felt the restraint as well as the disagreeable curiosity with which he was regarded. This made his search for David more difficult. Under the circumstances it was not easy to explain why he, of all men, was traveling with an American; hence, he was forced to speak with more reserve than he would have liked of the young man’s disappearance.
As a result of the little that he learned, he was convinced that David had neither reached nor passed the inn on the way to Bogota. There remained two alternatives. Had his companion been carried along by the volunteers? Or, had he, by mistake, of course, taken a side trail from the main road and thus lost himself in the labyrinth of mountains and forests through which they were traveling? No one knew of such a side trail. As for the other possibility, there was nothing to do but await the coming of his own party of men and officers whom Herran and David had left shortly after their departure from Honda, and who must have met, in their turn, the volunteers somewhere on the road. In themeantime, nothing could be gained from the landlord of the inn, whose intelligence was at an even lower ebb in the morning than on the preceding evening. This good-natured but fatuous boniface found it difficult to sustain a conversation on the most ordinary topics; and as a result of his intellectual labors with him, the sociable Herran was nearing the extremity of misery when his own party arrived, several hours after the last traveler had left the inn.
“Ah, yes, Senor General!” groaned Colonel Rodriguez, the bustling little officer in charge of the men during Herran’s absence; “we met the volunteers. They wanted us to go with them to Panama. They waved their flag, they shouted, they made speeches, they cheered the fatherland, they cursed the Yankees, they said you would lead them to the Isthmus. Their little capitan, who rode on a burro and talked peon very much, said we belonged to them, and Colombia depended on us. It was very terrible. We thought they would never leave us.”
“Did you meet the Yankee, Don David, with them?” asked Herran.
“Don David? But—is he not with you?” they asked in return.
“I left him when we met those insane volunteers.”
“But, Senor General, they said that a young man—it must be Don David—went with you.”
“Ah, caramba! Then they know nothing?”
“That is all, Senor.”
“Then he is lost, that little fellow. He is not with me, he is not with those canaille—unless they hide him, or kill him. No one has seen him; he is lost—or dead.”
Having reached this decision, there was nothing further to do except march to Bogota and telegraph from there the news of David’s disappearance to his friends in Honda.
Thevanishing of David Meudon in broad daylight while traveling on one of the main thoroughfares of the Republic became the sensation of the hour in Bogota. It excited more interest even than the return of General Herran and his party from Panama. The tale of David’s disappearance three years before was revived, and gossip found plenty of material from which to weave wild romance as to what had happened on both occasions. But you can’t build up a durable romance without some solid fact to base it on, and since this whole affair was wrapped in mystery, lacking anything tangible, public interest gradually and inevitably died out. Among government leaders, however, owing to the strained relations existing between the United States and Colombia, there was some anxiety over the incident.
General Herran, who was related to the President of the Republic, and who was proved to have had nothing to do—consciously, that is—with the loss of Panama, declared that the government was responsible for David’s disappearance. He argued that, as the country was not in a state of war, the marching of volunteer regiments on the public roads was a menace to foreigners havingbusiness in Colombia, and that therefore these regiments should either be disbanded or else ample protection be given to all travelers who might encounter them. As it was too late to look after David—so said the General—his friends, who were about to set out for Bogota, should at least be guarded from a like fate on the way thither. Accordingly, as this view of the case was approved, a company of soldiers was sent to Honda—and thus it happened that Doctor Miranda, Leighton and his niece, Mrs. Quayle and the schoolmaster—recovered from his fever and the Doctor’s pills—made the journey under military escort, arriving in the capital quite like official personages.
This novel manner of traveling, although it kept off vagrant militia, had its sinister features for the timid members of the party. Mrs. Quayle, whose fear of a burro grew in proportion as she became familiar with that harmless and necessary animal, believed that she and her friends had fallen captives, through a skillful bit of strategy, into the enemy’s hands and were being led either to their death or imprisonment. To this belief she stuck, in spite of the vehemence and ridicule with which Doctor Miranda seasoned his arguments against it. Indeed, had she dared express her full opinion her suspicions would have involved the Doctor himself, whose explosive habits and other eccentricities kept her in a continual state of alarm that was increased, every now and then, by his malicious allusions to the jewelry she wore. Andrew, inclined to attribute his fever to the famous pills and the heroic treatment to which he had been subjected, secretly shared her feeling, and was in hourly dread of some new calamity striking him from thesame quarter. Harold Leighton and Una, however, were too much absorbed in David’s mysterious fate to be greatly concerned by what was going on immediately around them. The old savant, unable to explain the disaster, was distressed beyond measure by the poignant grief of his niece. In his own mind he was convinced that the singular occurrence on the Honda road was related in some way to David’s former disappearance, and this belief stimulated his professional eagerness to solve the puzzle presented by so strange a coincidence. Una’s appeal, therefore, to go any length in the rescue of David needed no urging. It was met with a hearty promise of aid from Doctor Miranda, who stormed at the government, in and out of season, for permitting bands of peons to endanger the lives of harmless travelers.
The Doctor was especially indignant with Herran, who called upon the Americans before they were fairly settled in their hotel in Bogota. He pitched into this hapless officer with his choicest bits of vituperation, until Herran began to think that the loss of one man, under certain circumstances, was as serious an affair as the loss of an isthmus. Leighton, however, did not share Doctor Miranda’s views of the matter.
“Miranda is unreasonable,” he said to Herran. “There is a mystery in this case. You have done all you could to save the young man, and you are now offering to help us.”
“That is right! That is right!” agreed Miranda. “We must find him.”
“Anything I can do——” volunteered Herran.
“Do you know an American in this town by the name of Raoul Arthur?” interrupted Leighton.
“How not! But—I don’t like him.”
“Never mind. I must see him. If any one can unravel this thing, he can.”
“Mr. Meudon spoke of him. I will find him for you.”
“Do you know where he lives?”
“Surely, Senor. In the Calle Mercedes.”
“Take me to him.”
“Very well, Senor,” said Herran, apparently overcoming his reluctance; “that is settled. First, I will be sure he is there. Then, this night, I take you to his house.”
Una, hearing of this decision, doubted its wisdom. From the few references David had made to his partner in the Guatavita mining venture she had felt instinctively that Raoul was his enemy, an opinion strengthened by the psychometer test used at Stoneleigh. Leighton had agreed in this opinion, more or less; hence Una’s surprise that her uncle, who was usually overcautious, should now turn to Raoul for help.
“I believe the man knows where David is,” he declared.
“If he does, he will never tell you,” remonstrated Una.
“I am not so sure of that.”
“You may force him to do something fatal,” she urged.
“On the contrary! By going to him at once I will prevent any foul play—if there is to be any foul play.”
The possibility alarmed her. The suspense, the mystery surrounding David seemed more than she could bear. Bitterly she remembered Leighton’s attitude towards him in Rysdale. And now that their trip to Bogota, insisted on from the first by her uncle, had ended as it had, herfaith in him was sadly shaken. She could not accept his judgment in a case about which he had already shown so grave a lack of foresight. Leighton, on his part, realized Una’s distrust of him. He did not try to dispel this feeling; but the knowledge that it was there spurred him on to do his best and with the least possible delay.
So, that very evening Leighton, piloted by Herran, sought Raoul Arthur’s abode on the Calle Mercedes. Like most Bogota houses of the humbler sort, this was a one-storied building, its heavy street door opening upon a wide brick corridor leading to a central patio from which the various rooms were reached. Following Colombian custom, the two men entered without announcement and made their way along the unlighted passage to the main living room, extending from the patio to the street. A lamp at the center of a long table heaped with books and papers distinguished this from the other rooms of the house, all of which were in darkness and apparently uninhabited. A man, somewhat past thirty, his hair slightly grizzled, his features pale and sharpened from study, sat at the table in this main room reading a much-worn leather-bound volume, the large black type and thick, yellowed paper of which gave ample proof of age. Aroused by the noise made by Leighton and Herran, he closed his book with a quick, nervous movement and turned to the doorway where his two visitors stood.
“This is Mr. Raoul Arthur?” asked Leighton grimly.
“Who are you?” demanded the other, his strange, shifting eyes on the massive figure before him.
“My name is Leighton. I am looking for David Meudon.”
“He is not here,” was the quick reply.
“I hardly expected to find him here,” retorted the savant.
“Then why ask me for him?”
“You were once, if you are not now, Meudon’s business partner. You must have heard of his disappearance. On his way from Honda to Bogota he—well, he simply vanished. That’s the only way to describe it. It all happened, no one knows how, a few days ago. The same thing took place some years ago when he was living here with you. You know all about the details of that first disappearance.”
“You are mistaken,” interrupted Raoul. “David Meudon left me for a number of months. On his return he failed—or didn’t think it worth while—to explain his absence.”
“That is all very well. Perhaps he could, perhaps he couldn’t explain it. At any rate, you thought that absence sufficiently peculiar to make it the subject of an article for the Psychological Journal.”
Raoul flinched perceptibly under this statement. His cool indifference took on the sort of cordiality that repels one more than open enmity. Bending over the table before which he was standing, he occupied himself in elaborately sorting and rearranging some papers at which he had been working.
“Of course,” he said, “I know you now! Mr. Harold Leighton. I didn’t place the name at first, which was altogether stupid of me. I have often wanted to meet you. As a matter of fact, I heard of your coming. It’s a rare treat in this out-of-the-way part of the world to run across a man who has advanced our knowledge of psychology as you have.”
The profuse compliment was not relished by the old savant. “I am not aware that I have advanced our knowledge of psychology, as you put it, one iota,” he said testily. “But I am here to add to the small stock of what I have already learned.”
“You must have found David a rare problem!” exclaimed Raoul.
“You know him, perhaps, better than I do.”
“Yes, I know him. That is, in a way. Engaging sort of chap. Clever, and all that. Mysterious, too, don’t you think? So, he has disappeared again, you say?”
“Don’t tell me that you have not known of it! The whole town has been talking about it.”
“Rumors, only rumors,” protested Raoul. “I would like to hear the real facts.”
“This gentleman, General Herran, with whom Mr. Meudon was traveling, can tell you the facts, such as they are. But I can’t see why you should need them.”
Raoul turned to Leighton’s companion, who had been trying to follow what the two men were saying. As they talked in English, a language of which he knew scarcely a word, he could make very little of it. Asked, in Spanish, to give the details of his ride with David, he made an excellent story of it, relating something of the discussion that had absorbed them while on the road together, the friendly feeling that had grown up between them, its touch of conviviality, and their abrupt separation in the midst of their encounter with the regiment of volunteers.
Raoul listened intently to Herran’s narrative, his glance roving restlessly from the narrator to his companion andback again, as if to compare the effect on both of what was said.
“It’s a strange tale, Senor,” he commented when Herran had come to the end. “These things with a touch of mystery in them are always fascinating—until you stumble on the clew. Then it’s very simple. I suppose you have no theory to explain our friend’s disappearance?”
“None, Senor.”
“You have just told me, Mr. Leighton,” he went on, addressing the latter, “that you are here to add to your knowledge of psychology.”
“I did.”
“Well, what do you make of it? Here’s what you are looking for—a neat psychological problem right to your hand.”
“I don’t see it,” said the savant impatiently.
“That’s always the way with you great scientists! But—it’s simple,” declared Raoul, a note of triumph in his voice; “absolutely simple—if you know David as well as I do.”
“I said that you probably know him better. I have not known him as long or as intimately as you have. But—again I fail to see what psychology has to do with it.”
“It has everything to do with it. David was not spirited away, as you seem to imagine. He disappeared of his own accord.”
“There is every reason to think the contrary,” said Leighton contemptuously.
“Oh, of course I may be wrong in my theory. But, as there is no other evidence, I see only one solution.It’s the clew we are after, you know—and the clew is right under your nose.”
“Perhaps you are on the wrong scent. Some investigators have a knack of being cocksure about everything. But—explain your meaning.”
“Very well. Let’s talk as one psychologist to another, then. Meudon has a peculiar temperament. You probably know that. But you may not know that the dual personality is highly developed in him. Under strong, sudden excitement this personality becomes greatly exaggerated.”
“He was laboring under no particular excitement at the time of his disappearance,” objected Leighton.
“What about the mission he was on? I have an idea that it was of absorbing importance to him. Remember, he was revisiting scenes connected with an episode that for some years he has been trying to forget but which he now wants to revive. And then, to cap the climax, suddenly he comes, slap bang, right into the midst of a rabble of peons who would be only too glad to kill him, or imprison him, or torture him—or anything else unpleasant. The same crowd tried to get me once, so I know what it all means.”
“All this is true; but the excitement was hardly enough to drown David’s normal personality.”
“It all helps, though. It predisposes things. It is, as I look at it, the final stage setting, with all the characters in their places awaiting the entrance of the villain to finish up the tragedy. And in this case the villain entered just at the critical moment. Mr. Leighton,” he asked abruptly, “have you ever known David to drink a glass of wine?”
“I can’t say that I have,” he answered doubtfully.
“Well, alcoholic stimulus, with certain temperaments—you know what it does. It starts up an altogether abnormal psychology, doesn’t it?”
“Very apt to.”
“Depends a little on the stage setting, doesn’t it? But, even without that it has its odd effects. On rare occasions, for instance, I have known Meudon to take a single drink of liquor. The result has been similar to that brought on by hypnotism.”
“Well?”
“There’s your clew!” Raoul announced triumphantly. “You have heard General Herran’s story. He tells us that just before they parted he and David drank several toasts together—and the toasts, I fancy, were stronger than mere wine.”
“You think, then——”
“Why, it’s childishly simple! David was knocked over by a force, an influence, to which he is unaccustomed. He is not at all a drinking man, you understand. Quite the reverse. With him the effect of drink would not be in the least like ordinary intoxication. From two former experiences I know that it would be far subtler. It would produce what you would call a pseudo-hypnosis, a condition of abnormal psychology.”
“Well?”
“Don’t you see what happened?”
“I have not had your experience with David,” was the sarcastic reply.
“It is not a question of mere personal experience,” said Raoul irritably; “it involves what we know—or guess—of the eccentricities of the human soul.”
“You are an enthusiast. Be more explicit. Don’t wander off in your statements.”
“Very well. I’ll put it in the lingo of science as nearly as I can. It appears to me, then, that David, by this little exchange of pistol shots, as you call them, with General Herran, brought into activity a portion of his brain that had not, for a number of years, intruded itself upon his conscious life. It had literally been sleeping all that time. On the last occasion when it was awake—when, in other words, he was under the sway of this subconscious ego—he was here, amid the very scenes in which he again finds himself. A moment ago you connected his first disappearance with the one which has just taken place on the road from Honda. Well, the General’s ‘pistol,’ as he calls it, suddenly threw David back into the memory of that first subconscious experience.”
“The Ghost of the Forgotten found at last,” mused Leighton, more to himself than to Raoul.
“Exactly! That’s a good way to put it.”
“Suppose your theory correct; what happened after David’s subconscious memory was awakened?”
“As a psychologist, you are better able to answer that than I.”
“I am not interested in abstruse problems just now. I am here simply to find David.”
“Difficult, perhaps. I couldn’t find him before. But at least I have given you the clew.”
“Your clew doesn’t explain. I don’t know what to do with it.”
“A restatement of my theory may clear things up. Through a combination of certain circumstances, exertingupon him a peculiar influence, David is living again in an environment and through a set of experiences that belong to him only when he is in what we call a condition of secondary personality. Discover that environment—the same, I believe, as the one in which he was lost three years ago—and you will discover David.”
Leighton made no comment. He regarded Raoul with characteristic immobility. One gathered from his silence, however, that he was impressed with what he had just heard. Slowly pacing the length of the sala, he stopped before General Herran, who, through his ignorance of English, was in a quite helpless state of bewilderment at the turn the interview between the two men had taken.
“This young man will help us find Meudon,” said Leighton in his broken Spanish.
“He knows where he is?” asked Herran eagerly.
“He knows—something,” replied the savant with significant emphasis. “For one thing, General, those pistol shots you had with Meudon seem to have played the devil.”
“Caramba! Does he say so? But that is foolishness!”
“No, it is theory,” said Leighton drily.
“How will he prove it?”
“By finding Meudon.”
There was a finality in the tone of Leighton’s rejoinder which, more than the words themselves, indicated the seeker’s conviction that the road to David’s discovery was in plain view. Raoul Arthur, however, said nothing. Standing aloof from his two visitors, apparently not heeding them, his silence aroused Leighton’s curiosity.
“Naturally, I depend on you, Arthur,” said the old man, with an emphasis that sounded like a threat.
“I don’t know why,” he demurred. “David was with your party when this happened. I failed to find him three years ago, you know.”
“There is no proof that you did anything then to rescue the man who was your friend and business partner,” retorted Leighton. “This time failure might be fatal—for you.”
The words and Leighton’s manner had their effect. Shaking off his real, or assumed, apathy, Raoul faced his accuser angrily.
“I have given you the one clew of which I have any knowledge,” he said, meeting Leighton for the first time eye to eye. “I have done what I could, I will still do what I can. But I won’t act at the dictation of a man of whom I know nothing, whom I never even met until this moment.”
“That’s all very well,” replied the other imperturbably. “But, as I said, I depend on you—quite naturally, it seems to me—to help in the recovery of your friend. My niece and I are in this country for the express purpose of solving David’s former disappearance.”
“Your niece?”
“Yes; the woman whom David expects to marry.”
Raoul’s defiant attitude vanished before this announcement. Irritation gave place to amazement, distrust turned to friendliness. Nor did he attempt to conceal his appetite for further news of David’s personal affairs.
“David wrote me nothing of this,” he said. “Fromhis letter I learned that he was coming with friends. He did not tell me who these friends were.”
“Well, there’s every reason why I should be frank with you—as I expect you to be frank with me.”
“You are still suspicious. What can I do, or say? I tell you, I don’t know where David is.”
“Do you know where he was when he disappeared from Bogota three years ago?”
“No.”
“Strange! A man with all your interests at stake in this puzzle—surely you must have reached some conclusion?”
“I tell you, I have not,” he replied sharply. “I know nothing, absolutely nothing.”
“You admit you have a theory—let’s call it that—a theory that fits the facts so far as you know them?”
“That’s your deduction,” sneered the other.
“But, I’m right?”
“Possibly,” Raoul answered, turning again to the papers that littered his writing table.
“That’s all I want,” declared Leighton with satisfaction. “Now, we will plan our campaign.”
Raoul, engrossed in a large, musty document which he had spread before him, greeted the proposal with a shrug of his shoulders. General Herran, impatient at the apparently futile and—to him—incomprehensible discussion, consumed innumerable cigarettes, while Leighton, with the air of one for whom waiting is an enjoyment, settled himself comfortably in a capacious rocking-chair.
The ensuing silence was rudely broken. There was a vigorous pounding upon the outer door, followed bythe abrupt and noisy entrance into the house of some one from the street. Whoever it was, this late visitor stood little upon ceremony. But Leighton and General Herran had no difficulty in recognizing the nervous shuffle of feet along the stone corridor, the thump of the heavy walking-stick, accompanied by grunts of dissatisfaction and suppressed wrath. When Doctor Miranda finally bolted into the room, fanning himself as usual—although fans were a decidedly uncomfortable superfluity in the chilly night air of Bogota—they were, in a way, prepared for him.
“He is gone! He is lost—that leetle fellow! There is one more lost of them!” he shouted, repeating his disjointed English in staccato Spanish, as soon as he caught sight of his two friends.
Leighton and Herran exchanged amazed glances at this enigmatic bit of intelligence, while Raoul, preoccupied and restless though he was, could not restrain a grin at the unconventional being who had rolled his way, unannounced, into his house.
“What do you mean?” demanded Leighton.
“I tell you, he is lost, that leetle schoolmaster!” Miranda exploded.
“Andrew Parmelee lost? Impossible!”
“You are an estupido,” retorted the Doctor angrily. “I say he is lost. Before my eyes he disappear. I never lie, I never mistake.”
Not caring to discuss this announcement, Leighton tried to divert the torrent of words into something like a coherent statement. But in his present excitable mood Doctor Miranda floundered hopelessly in a morass of verbal difficulties and ended by telling his story in alternatelayers of Spanish and English. From his account, however, his hearers were able to put together the main points of an occurrence that, vehemently vouched for though it was by the narrator, strained their credulity to the limit.
Early that morning, it appeared, Doctor Miranda, accompanied by the reluctant Andrew, had left Bogota for a visit to Lake Guatavita. The report that David’s disappearance three years before had taken place there was given as the reason for the trip. Arrived at the lake, Andrew had declined to accompany the Doctor in his search among the cliffs that guarded the mysterious body of water, and had stationed himself near the cutting made centuries before by the Spaniards. This was a comparatively well sheltered spot and sufficiently removed from the precipitous shore which the cautious schoolmaster was anxious to avoid. His investigations concluded after the lapse of something like two hours, Miranda returned to the old Spanish cutting, expecting to rejoin Andrew. But Andrew was not there. Surprised at not finding him, the doctor at first supposed that the schoolmaster had grown tired of waiting and had journeyed back to Bogota alone. A single circumstance proved that in this he was wrong. There stood Andrew’s horse where he had originally left him—and it seemed altogether unlikely that his rider had deliberately set out to cover the long and arduous miles to Bogota afoot.
“Another puzzle in psychology, I suppose,” commented Leighton, with a sarcastic glance at Raoul Arthur.
The latter, however, in spite of the fact that Andrew was an utter stranger to him, appeared to be moreamazed than the others by Miranda’s story, and for the moment paid no heed to Leighton.
“When you found his horse you made a thorough search for your friend, of course, Senor?” he asked Miranda eagerly.
“Caramba! leetle fellow, what you think?” was the impatient reply. “I look, and I look, and I call—fifty times I call. If I can swim I jump into the lake to find him there. But I am too fat. So, I call more times, and I throw stones, and make the trumpet with the hands. It is no use. That leetle fellow say nothing. He is not there. So, I come away after long time.”
“He is drowned, poor fellow,” murmured Herran in Spanish.
“It is not possible,” declared Miranda, turning angrily upon the general. “What make him drown? Of the water he is afraid. If he fall in—by mistake—he make a noise, he call to me. I am close by, I hear—I go to him quickly. But I hear nothing.”
“Well, if he didn’t drown, as our friend argues, what did become of him?” demanded Leighton.
“Ah, Senor,” replied Miranda, his mobile features expressing hopeless bewilderment, “I do not know. It is just so as I tell you; he disappear, he vanish, he is gone. If I know where, I find him—I would not be here.”
“So, there are two disappearances to account for,” summed up Leighton. “Foreigners visiting Bogota seem to have the trick of vanishing. What do you make of it, Mr. Arthur?”
“I am as much at a loss as you.”
“Hardly that, I should think. You, at least, know all about this mysterious lake. You know what happenedthere three years ago, for instance. And then you know——”
“You credit me with a great deal more knowledge than I can lay claim to,” interrupted Raoul. “I never heard of this man who has been lost, as your excitable friend tells us, in such a singular manner—this Mr. Andrew——”
“Parmelee,” supplied the other. “Andrew Parmelee, schoolmaster, of Rysdale, Connecticut. He is a very excellent person who, through his devotion to my niece and myself, has fallen, I fear, a victim to some strange plot. You will join us, I have no doubt, in his rescue. I am ignorant of the psychology of Guatavita. However, as I have already told you, I am here to add to my stock of psychological knowledge, and I fancy there are few who could teach me more, in cases of this kind, than you.”
The sarcasm was not lost on Miranda, who shrugged his shoulders, muttered some unintelligible Spanish imprecation and exchanged a comprehending glance with General Herran. Raoul Arthur, on the other hand, ignored the tone Leighton had adopted in addressing him. In his reply he dropped the irritation and suspicion with which he had first regarded the old savant, and there was even cordiality in the manner and look accompanying his somewhat ceremonious acceptance of the task imposed upon him.
“If I thought it possible of so profound a scholar, Professor Leighton,” he laughed, “I would say you were chaffing me. As it is, I feel the honor in your proposal that I should join you in solving these mysterious disappearances.Perhaps I can be of some help. At any rate, depend on me for whatever I can do.”
“Two Americans unaccountably disappear in the heart of Colombia,” mused Leighton. “If it were not for certain odd circumstances, I should say the country’s indignation over the loss of Panama had something to do with it.”
Against this suggestion Miranda impatiently protested.
“Impossible!” he shouted. “Always these people fight with the gun, the machete, if they are angry. They make much noise and talk; never they steal the enemies of their country and say nothing. It is one plot—and perhaps this senor will know,” he concluded, darting an accusing glance at Raoul.
But Raoul, now thoroughly composed, smiled disdainfully, although agreeing in Doctor Miranda’s rejection of Leighton’s half-formed theory.
“If it is necessary,” he assured them, “I can easily prove that I have had nothing to do with all this. I have not been out of Bogota for a month or more. Besides, I have the strongest business reasons for wanting the safe return of David Meudon to this country. As for Mr. Parmelee; I repeat—I never heard of him before. But, I agree with our friend here; the disappearance of these two men has nothing to do with the Panama trouble. It is something else. There is a mystery about it. I have no doubt it can be solved.”
“You have the clew?” demanded Leighton.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Well?”
“Perhaps I know some one here—a woman—who could help us.”
But that evening, after the departure of his visitors, Raoul Arthur found the little house in the Calle de las Flores tenantless, and learned that the woman, known to the neighborhood as La Reina de los Indios, had left Bogota, with all her household effects, a week before.
Puzzledat not finding Sajipona, uncertain how to take up the promise he had given in regard to her, an altogether unexpected turn of events awaited Raoul at Leighton’s hotel the next morning. Andrew Parmelee had been found. In the custody of two delighted police officers the missing schoolmaster, bewildered, quite speechless from his nocturnal experience, had made his appearance, scarcely an hour before Raoul’s arrival. When, thanks to Miranda’s persistent prodding, backed by the calm questioning of Leighton and Una’s sympathetic ministrations, he found his tongue, the account Andrew gave of his adventure was so wildly improbable that his friends were inclined to believe he had been the victim of some temporary mental delusion. But this did not answer the threefold question: what had brought on his delusion, how had he escaped the vigilant Miranda, and how had he fallen into the hands of the police.
The two officers gave a simple statement of what, so far as they knew, had happened.
Late the night before, they said, Andrew had wandered into the alcalde’s office in a little pueblo a few miles this side of Guatavita. His appearance, manner and mental condition—they hinted broadly enough thatthe luckless Andrew, when first found was in a very irresponsible condition indeed—called for the protection of the law. But as the poor gentleman, they said, was apparently suffering from nothing more than the effects of a too convivial outing in the country, he had been put in jail, not as a punishment, but rather as an act of humanity. Unable to express himself in Spanish, Andrew had evidently been something of a puzzle to the simple-minded officials of the pueblo. Out of his incoherent jumble of words, however, the name of a hotel in Bogota had been seized upon. A telephone message was sent to the municipal police, and the two officers who now had him in charge were detailed to conduct him in safety to his friends. Beyond this, the clearing up of the mystery of his temporary disappearance—if mystery it was—rested with Andrew himself. But he, for a time, was unable to satisfy the curiosity of his questioners.
“I don’t understand it myself,” he said hopelessly, addressing himself, in the main, to Leighton, whose calm demeanor was less confusing than the badgering of the excitable Doctor. “All I know is, that when Doctor Miranda went off to make some explorations on his own account, I felt a little nervous at finding myself alone in such a dismal place. Not frightened, you know, but just nervous.”
“Why you not call to me?” demanded Miranda.
“There was really no reason to call for help, you see, as nothing had happened. So, just to pass the time until Doctor Miranda came back, I walked along the edge of the lake, feeling very miserable, I confess, wondering what had become of Mr. Meudon, and wishing that we were all out of this terrible country and back in Rysdale.At first, there was nothing to alarm me particularly; but the more I thought about the disappearance of Mr. Meudon the more nervous I became. And then, just as I was wondering if we would ever find him, and feeling more uneasy at the strange silence of that melancholy lake——”
“Caramba! You would have the lake to talk?”
“I—I heard footsteps among the rocks behind me.”
“A sightseer from Bogota, I suppose,” suggested Leighton.
“No, it was not exactly that—at least, I don’t think so. But at first I really didn’t turn around to see. I just kept on looking at the lake and going over some of the terrible stories I had heard about it.”
“You see, this leetle fellow was quite mad with the fright,” interjected Miranda. “He dream. He hear, he see nothing. Nobody was there. I know.”
“I think, Sir, you are mistaken,” protested the schoolmaster. “I admit I was nervous. But I was perfectly sane—and I was not asleep.”
“Of course you were not asleep, Mr. Parmelee,” said Una soothingly. “As for being nervous—any one would have been nervous.”
“Well?” inquired Leighton impatiently.
“Well, Sir, as I was saying, I heard footsteps. They approached me. I made up my mind I had better see who it was. I turned around. And then I saw, a few yards from me, a stranger. How he came there without my having seen him before, I can’t imagine. And then, thinking about this, I confess I became quite agitated.”
“But what was he like, what did he say?” demanded Leighton. “It was a man, I suppose?”
“Oh, yes, I am quite sure he was a man—a very tall man, and singularly dressed.”
“‘Singularly dressed?’”
“I thought so, at least. But then, I am not familiar with the fashions of this country. You see, it is very cold on the shores of the lake, and I should think that any one going there would want at least to be warmly clad. But this man had nothing on that I could see, except a long sort of toga, just like the pictures I have studied in Herodotus. It was looped up on one shoulder through what looked like a golden ring——”
“He dream! He dream! this leetle fellow!” laughed Miranda. “He is too good.”
“And this toga fell down to a point just below his knees. It was a purple and white toga—or perhaps I ought to call it a tunic—with a fringe of gold tassels. He had sandals on his bare feet and wore no trousers—at least, I could see none.”
“Caramba!”
“Really, Mr. Parmelee, you describe a very singular sort of person for this age and climate,” said Leighton coldly. “Are you sure that your agitated state of mind—you admit you were agitated—did not create a purely imaginary apparition?”
“Did I not say he dream?” demanded Miranda triumphantly. “And the police say he drink. But that is not so—he never drink. I know. I am there.”
“I am very sorry, Sir; I know it sounds ridiculous,” protested the distressed Andrew. “But I am certain that I was not asleep—or anything else that these well-meaning gentlemen say. I am only telling you what I really saw.”
“Well, tell us the whole story. Setting aside this person’s remarkable costume, what was he like, what did he say?”
“I don’t think he said anything. He was an Indian. That is, he was not a white man. I never saw any one just like him, so I may not be right about the race to which he belongs.”
Andrew’s confused statement brought protests from Leighton as well as Miranda.
“In this country,” remarked Leighton dogmatically, “a man is either an Indian, a white, or a half-breed. There are no negroes up here, you know. The negroes all stayed on the coast. As for your inability to tell us whether he spoke or not—well, the whole thing begins to sound absurd.”
But the rebuke failed to bring out anything more clear in the way of explanation from Andrew.
“Pray, Sir, remember,” he expostulated, “that at the time of this stranger’s appearance evening was setting in. The growing darkness prevented anything like a reliable estimate that I could have made of his features. In the twilight he seemed dark to me, although not so dark as the average Indian. And yet, allowing for the twilight, he certainly was not a white man.”
“But what happened?” urged Leighton.
“He appeared surprised at seeing me. And then he smiled, approached to where I was standing, and waved a sort of salutation to me. I think he may have muttered some words, either of invitation or friendly greeting. But if he did, it was not in English, nor in Spanish.”
“He, at least, was not agitated, it seems! But as youwere afflicted with more than the usual amount of timidity, I suppose you avoided him.”
“I assure you, Sir, that as soon as I saw this person, I felt no further fear. There was nothing threatening in his manner. And it flashed through my mind that he could give me some information about Mr. Meudon. I observed that he beckoned me to him—and as he did so I followed.”
“Well?”
“That was the singular part of it. There was every reason why I should not go with him—at least, not without first notifying Doctor Miranda. But this strange being smiled so pleasantly and seemed so friendly that my feeling of nervousness passed away, and I was eager to go with him. This I did. Apparently he retraced his steps, leading me along the shore of a little inlet to the lake until we reached a high wall of rock that I had not particularly noticed before. Here he stopped and looked at me, still smiling, as if to make sure that I was following him.”
“Do you think you could identify this wall of rock if you were to see it again?” asked Raoul Arthur, speaking for the first time.
“I am sure I could,” said Andrew, “because we stood in front of it for some time, this strange person in the toga passing his hand over its surface, while I wondered what he was going to do next. I noticed that it was a very high and blank wall indeed.”
“Where was it?”
“Just next to the cutting that Doctor Miranda had told me was made by the Spaniards to drain the lake.”
“I did not see this wall,” expostulated Miranda. “You are in one dream.”
“Never mind,” snapped Leighton; “go on with your story.”
“I am afraid you will believe me less than ever,” said Andrew deprecatingly. “But I am only telling what I am certain I saw.”
“Go on.”
“As he passed his hand over the surface of the wall he gradually turned to one side until we stood before a narrow cleft in the rocks.”
“It is not there,” interrupted Miranda contemptuously. “I examine all this rock. It has no—what you call?—cleft.”
“I am very sorry, Sir, but I know that there is such a cleft. I think that is what you would call it. You might easily have overlooked it, Sir. It was only a narrow opening in the rock, facing away from the lake and reaching up not more than about three feet from the ground.”
“I remember it,” declared Raoul.
“Pray go on with your story, Mr. Parmelee,” Leighton commanded.
“There is not much more to tell, although the little that remains is quite the most extraordinary part of it. Pausing an instant before this opening in the rock, my strange guide crouched down until he was able to pass within it, beckoned me to follow him, and then disappeared.”
The schoolmaster spoke with difficulty, hesitating every now and then for the word that would best express what had happened. Having plunged into his story, however,he went bravely on, gaining courage as he recalled his singular experiences, and impressing those who heard him with the sincerity, if not the truth, of the narrative. Of all his auditors Raoul, apparently, followed him with the closest attention. His attitude, indeed, seemed to indicate a belief, on his part, in Andrew’s statements.
“I hesitated about following this unknown man into so strange a place,” continued Andrew; “but his manner was so perfectly courteous and friendly—and then I thought that behind all this mystery there might be something to help us find Mr. Meudon—that I made up my mind to keep with him as long as possible. I crouched down, therefore, as I had seen him do, forced my way through the narrow opening in the rock, and presently, after a little difficulty, found myself in a dark passage that afforded me room to stand upright and move forward. I could dimly perceive my guide walking at some distance in front of me, and I hastened as well as I could to reach him. In this I did not succeed, and so we followed the passage, he leading and I after him, for a hundred yards or more, until we came to an abrupt angle in the wall where the uneven path made a sharp dip downward. Here I stopped, having completely lost sight of my guide, and after waiting a short time I called to him. No answer came that I could hear, and in the darkness that surrounded me I began to grow confused and alarmed. It seemed to me I had been lured into some sort of trap. Repenting of my folly for having ventured so far into such a dismal hole, I determined to get out of it as quickly as possible. This, I thought, would be easily done because, to the best of my knowledge, I had followed along a straight corridor and, if Iturned back, I would soon come within sight of the opening that led to the lake. But either I had miscalculated the distance I had walked, or else, in turning to go out I started in the wrong direction. At any rate, I had not gone very far before I found myself in a labyrinth of passages. I perceived this by feeling along the wall. And so—there I was, without any clew to help me in choosing the right passage.
“I scarcely know what I did when I realized that I was hopelessly lost in this pitch black cavern. For one thing, I shouted for help, thinking that possibly Doctor Miranda might hear me. But the echoes from my voice were more terrifying than the silence. The air was stifling; the ground appeared to move beneath my feet; the darkness was like a heavy veil winding closer and closer about me. Then, unable, as it seemed to me, to move or breathe any longer, everything went from me. I sank to the floor unconscious. And that’s all I remember.”
“But—how you say that? You are here, leetle fellow,” blurted Miranda. “You are all right.”
“Yes, I am here,” Andrew assented woefully. “But I don’t know how I got here. When I came to myself again I was lying on the shore of the lake. It was quite dark. My horse had gone——”
“That is right; I take him,” corroborated Miranda, with satisfaction.
“I don’t know how I succeeded in doing it—I suppose it was instinct—but I managed to follow the trail on foot, and after a desperate struggle I reached the village where the people helped me to get back to Bogota.”
Andrew’s story was variously received. No one coulddoubt his honesty. With such transparent simplicity as his, it would be difficult to suppose him capable of drawing—consciously at least—upon his fancy. Doctor Miranda suggested that he merely dreamed what he afterwards took to be reality. But the others, discrediting this theory, were apparently inclined to accept the story, so far as it went, in spite of its fantastic and well nigh incredible features. Raoul Arthur appeared particularly impressed and proposed immediate action.
“I know the cleft in the rock,” he said. “I have been over a small part of the passage to which it gives entrance. It was there, three years ago, in our attempt to undermine Lake Guatavita, that a charge of dynamite exploded, after which David Meudon disappeared. I had no idea that this passage extended back into the mountain as far as it does, according to Mr. Parmelee’s story. But now—it strikes me, Mr. Leighton, that chance has given us the clew you were seeking last night. If you are still anxious to trace David’s whereabouts, the path lies down the passage entered by Mr. Parmelee and his togaed, sandaled guide.”
“You want to explore it?” demanded Leighton.
“I do.”
“But why, if it was already known to you, have you not done this before?”
“The natives have always fought shy of going into it further than our mining operations made necessary. Besides, I never had any reason to suppose that it was more than a mere natural formation of rock—as it probably is—extending a short distance into the main body of the mountain.”
“And now?”
“I have no theory to advance. But,” he added significantly, “it was in this unexplored tunnel that David disappeared three years ago.”
The reminder had its effect. This linking up of the mysterious tunnel that had so nearly proved fatal to Andrew, with David’s first adventure suggested the possible solution of a problem that had baffled them until now. In spite of Miranda’s derisive comments on the schoolmaster’s “fairy tale,” there seemed to be only one thing to do—explore the tunnel. It might lead nowhere, and in that case the labor and the risk—if risk there was—would be of small account. If, however, it was the entrance to a subterranean dwelling, inhabited by people of whom the strange being described by Andrew was a specimen, the discovery was well worth making.
“We will rescue David!” exclaimed Una, the eagerness of hope in her voice.
“But, my young lady,” protested Miranda; “he go away many mile from this tunnel.”
“That is true,” assented Leighton.
“All the same, David was lost there before,” Raoul reminded him. “It is a clew we are bound to follow.”
The question remained, how carry out the proposed exploration? Equipped with miners’ lamps, a number of which, of the best pattern, were still among the stores David and Raoul had brought to Colombia at the beginning of their venture, the worst difficulty—darkness—could easily be overcome. Firearms, a supply of provisions, and oil for the lamps, were other items obviously needed. But the essential thing was, as Doctor Miranda tersely put it, “brains”—a cool-headed leaderwho would bring them back to the entrance of the tunnel in case of danger. General Herran, with his military training and experience, was the man for this rôle. This hero of unfought battles was thereupon chosen captain of the expedition—not, however, without some modest disclaimers of ability on his part.
“There will be five of us then,” remarked Leighton. “General Herran, Doctor Miranda, Arthur, Parmelee and myself.”
“There will be six,” amended Una.
“Six?”
“I will be one of the party.”
“Preposterous! You might as well make it seven, and include Mrs. Quayle.”
“I wouldn’t think of going,” declared that lady quivering with agitation.
“It is not for the womens,” argued Miranda, in his most conciliatory manner. “There may be troubles, and we want only the mens.”
Una turned on him fiercely.
“I don’t believe there is any danger,” she cried; “but, anyway, I am going. I am certain David is there. I will go!”