the current from a miniature dynamo which also supplies power for a small but powerful searchlight.
“Then there is the ration basket. It weighs but fifty pounds full, but it carries enough provisions for three persons for five days. In it also are three pairs of thin blankets made of a very light but warm weave of material and a water-filter. It contains, too, some medicines and bandages and lotions in case we have a smash-up. So you see,” concluded Frank with a laugh, “we have a pretty complete sort of a craft.”
After good-byes had been said to the Aztec’s captain and a few of their fellow-passengers who still remained on board, and the last of the dozen cases containing the Golden Eagle had been lowered into the lighter, the little party descended the Jacob’s Ladder and took their places in the bonga. While they had been on board one of the brown-skinned fishermen who manned her had rigged up a sort of awning astern with a spare sail, and this gave the voyagers a welcome bit of shade. With a cheer from the boys her crew shoved off and the bonga heeling to the breeze headed for the palm-fringed shore.
“About time they put about and ran up to the wharf, isn’t it?” asked Harry as the bonga scudded along so close to the shore that the roar of the heavy surf as the big waves broke on the yellow beach could be distinctly heard.
“Here’s where you are going to get a new experience,” laughed Mr. Chester, “I want to see whether such bold air sailors as you boys can stand shooting the surf without being scared.”
“You don’t mean to say that we are going to land on the beach?” gasped Harry.
“That’s just what I do,” cheerfully replied his father. “In a few minutes you’ll see something that will show you that all the wonders of the world aren’t monopolized by New York.”
The men in the bonga were lowering the sails as he spoke and when they had them tied in gaskets each took an oar while the captain ran to the stern with a long sweep.
The men rowed slowly toward the shore till they were almost hurled bow on into the tumbling surf. Suddenly, at a cry from the man in the stern, they stopped work with their oars and the bonga tossed up and down on the racing crests of the big waves while they “backwatered.”
All at once the man with the steering oar, who had been watching for a large wave to come rolling along, gave a loud command. The rowers fell furiously to work. The boys felt the bonga lifted up and up on the crest of the big combers and a second later they were swept forward, it seemed at a rate of sixty miles an hour. The surf broke all about the bonga, but she hardly shipped a drop.
As the long narrow craft raced into the boiling smother of white foam her crew leaped out in water almost up to their necks and fairly rushed the craft up the beach before the next roller came crashing in.
“Well, that beats shooting the chutes, for taking your breath away,” remarked Harry as the party strolled along under a palm-bordered avenue on their way to the hotel where they were to lunch. The dripping crew of the bonga followed them carrying the boys’ smart, new baggage on their heads.
The Hotel Grand Central was a long building with a red-tiled roof and the invariable patio in the center off which the room opened. The boys were delighted with the place. In the middle of the patio, in a grove of tropical plants, a cool fountain plashed and several gaudy macaws were clambering about in the branches of the glistening greenery. The hot dusty street outside with its glaring sun and blazing iron roofs seemed miles away.
As they were about to turn into the sala, in which their meal was to be served, a man bustled out and almost collided with them. It was General Rogero.
“Ah, Señor, we seem fated to encounter each other to-day,” he exclaimed with a flash of irritation as his eyes met Mr. Chester’s.
The next moment he had started back with a quick: “peste!” as his dark gaze fell on the boys.
“Why!” exclaimed Harry, “that’s the fellow who came down on the ship. The man who said he was a diamond salesman and that he had a lot of stones in that black bag! Do you know him, father?”
“Know him?” repeated Mr. Chester in a puzzled tone as Rogero whisked scowling out of sight into an adjoining room.
“He was a mysterious sort of cuss,” chimed in Frank, “kept to himself all the way down and had his meals in his cabin.”
“Perhaps he had a good reason to,” smiled Mr. Chester; “your diamond salesman is General Rogero of the president’s army.”
As he spoke and the two boys fairly gasped in astonishment at this sudden revelation of the true character of the man with the black bag, Billy Barnes came hurrying up.
“Hello, my fellow-passengers,” he exclaimed heartily; “hello, Frank! hello, Harry!” – it was characteristic of Mr. Barnes, that although he had met the boys for the first time on the steamer he was calling them by their first names the second day out – “as I hinted to your father an hour or so ago, I’ve run into the biggest story of my career.”
“You rushed off in such a hurry that I could hardly call it even a hint,” smiled Mr. Chester.
“You’ll get jolly well laid up, Mr. Barnes, if you go rushing about like that in this climate – what?” put in Blakely.
“I beg your pardon, sir, really,” burst out the impulsive Billy contritely, addressing Mr. Chester, “but you know when a newspaper man gets on the track of a good story he sometimes forgets his manners. But you will be interested in my morning’s work.”
“Here’s what I’m digging on and if it isn’t a snorter of a story never let me see New York again.”
“Well, what is it, Billy?” asked Harry, “come on, never mind the fireworks – let’s have it.”
“Just this;” proudly announced the reporter, “General Rogero has only two fingers on his right hand.”
“Yes?” from the boys in puzzled tones.
“Well, what of it?” from Mr. Chester.
Billy was evidently artist enough to keep his listeners in suspense for he went on with great deliberation.
“You remember that when he was ‘a diamond salesman,’ on board the Aztec that we hardly ever saw him? – well, there was a reason, as the advertising men say. What was that reason? you ask me. Just this; that he didn’t want any one to get wise that he was minus three of his precious digits.
“Why for? – Because the man who killed Dr. Moneague in New York, was shy on his hands in the same way – now do you see!” triumphantly demanded the reporter.
“If our amiable friend Rogero isn’t the same man who murdered Moneague in New York I’ll eat my camera, films and all,” he concluded.
“It doesn’t seem to me that you have any proof on which you can base such a serious accusation,” said Mr. Chester. “Rogero is a desperate man and an unscrupulous one, but I do not believe that even he would deliberately commit such a crime.”
“Don’t you, sir?” contradicted Billy, “well, I do. From what I’ve observed of him, he’d stop at nothing if he had an end to gain. The thing in this case though is, what was his motive for killing Dr. Moneague, except that Moneague, so the police discovered, was an agent of the revolutionists down here?”
Like a flash the recollection of what Don Pachecho had told him about the bit of parchment on which was traced the secret of the lost Toltec mines crossed Mr. Chester’s mind. He hurriedly gave his interested auditors an outline of what he knew about the clue to the treasure trove.
“Rogero’s the man then for twenty dollars!” excitedly cried Billy. “He had the thing in that black bag he guarded so carefully. If I only could get hold of it we’d have his neck in the halter in a brace of shakes. I’ve a good mind to try. The first thing I’m going to do, though, is to flash a bit of message to New York – to No. 300 Mulberry Street – and tell my old friend Detective Lieutenant Connolly that I think a run down here would result in his turning up something interesting. Anyhow – ,” the reporter was continuing,