Forbidden Cargoes

In a plain board shack with a palm thatched roof which had the Caribbean Sea at its front and the Central American jungle at its back, a slim, stooping sort of boy, with eyes that gleamed out of the dark corners exactly like a tiger's, paced back and forth the length of a long, low room. His every motion suggested a jaguar's stealth.

It was Panther Eye, a boy who was endowed with a cat's ability to see in the dark, and who spent much of his young life in India and other tropical lands. He also found himself quite at home in Central America. Nevertheless, at this moment he was in deep trouble.

The palm thatched shack boasted but one room. As the boy paced the mahogany floor of this room he passed a desk of roughly hewn rosewood. A small steel safe stood in one corner, the door slightly ajar. Before it on the floor lay a litter of papers, a few bundles of letters and a sizeable roll of currency. The boy paused to consider this litter.

"It was the map they wanted," he told himself. "Easy enough to see that. They didn't even look at the money, nearly a thousand dollars. The map! They knew we could do nothing without the map. The dirty dogs! If only Johnny Thompson were here!" Again he paced the floor.

What was to be done? His thoughts were in a tangle. The thieves who had broken into the safe were now well away in the jungle. There was no time to be lost. He'd catch them, he was sure of that. A jaguar couldn't escape him, much less a man. Yet the map might be destroyed. Without it nothing could be accomplished. Thousands were at stake, the treasure of a lifetime. And some one dearer to Pant than life itself was scheduled to lose. All day in that stuffy office he had waited for Johnny. Now evening was near.

"If only Johnny would come!" he repeated.

Had he but known it, his good pal, Johnny Thompson, was some three hundred miles away. What was more, he was behind iron bars in a stout stone jail. But this Pant could not know, so he continued to pace the floor.

As the first long shadow of a palm darkened the window he suddenly sprang into action. Throwing up the lid of a rough chest, he tossed out a miscellaneous assortment of articles, some small oilcloth wrapped packages, a black box, some fibre trays, a few articles of clothing and a curious instrument of iron. These he packed carefully in a kit bag, then closed the chest.

Seating himself at the desk in the corner, he began pecking at a small portable typewriter. He destroyed four half written sheets before he did one to suit him. The following is what appeared on the one he at last weighted down upon the desk:

/9*::6

5*3 ;@0 8$ -9:3 5*3 $0@:8@4%$

*@'3 85 8 @; -98:- 8:59 5*3

/7:-#3 @!534 85 8 28## -35 85

:3'34 !3@4 #99= 975 !94 @ $0@:-

8@4% :@;3% %8@( *3 8$ @

%3'8# :3'34 547$5 :94 '3#83'3 *8;

!94 @ ;9;3:5

-99% #7?=

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"There!" he sighed as he turned from the desk. "If Johnny Thompson doesn't make that out right away he won't be coming up to my expectations. And if any of these blacks and browns and whites that infest this waterfront can read it, I take off my hat to 'em."

Turning about, he slung the strap of his kit bag across his shoulder and leaving the cabin, disappeared into the gathering night and the jungle.

Some hours later he might have been found crouching close to the side of a bamboo hut at the heart of the jungle.

His hands trembled as he unwrapped a water-proof package. They trembled still more as he poured a gray powder from the package to a narrow V shaped piece of iron. A little of the powder was spilled over the side and, sinking into the deep bed of tropical moss, was lost forever.

"Won't do," he told himself, stiffening his shoulders. "I've got to get hold of myself. If I don't keep cool I'll make a mess of it and like as not get caught in the bargain.

"Caught by those Spaniards in the heart of the jungle!" He shuddered at the thought. "Caught. And what then?" He dared not think.

"No!" His resolve was strong. "They shall not get me, and I shall succeed. I must!" His face grew tense.

At that he went ahead with his task. Having spread the gray powder evenly along the iron trough, he ran a small black fuse half through it, then gave the fuse five turns about it. When he had finished, the lower end of the fuse hung some six inches below the trough.

"There!" he sighed.

A half hour later found him still crouching at the back of that cabin. This shelter, for it was little more, was of the sort common to the Central American jungle. In its construction not a board and not a single nail was used. A number of cohune nut palms had been felled. Their great fronds had been stripped. The fibre stripped from the stems had been piled in a heap, the stems themselves in another heap. Crotched mahogany limbs were fastened together with tie-tie vines. This made a frame. Rafters were added. The bamboo leaf fibre had been laid carefully in tiers over the rafters. This made a perfect roof. After that the ten foot stems of a great number of leaves were fastened side by side in a perpendicular position to form walls. When this was completed the house was ready to be occupied.

The cracks between the upright bamboo stems forming the walls were wide. A faint light shone through these cracks, and through them the boy could see all that went on within. All this interested him, but he was filled with a fever of impatience. He had come to act, not to listen.

Two dark-faced Spaniards sat in the center of the room. Two black bushmen lay sprawled upon the dirt floor. Before them, suspended upon a bamboo frame, was a map. The map, some four feet across, showed certain boundary lines, creeks and rivers. There were spots that had been done in blue. Still others were crisscrossed by pen lines, while larger portions were left white. The figure of one Spaniard hid part of the map.

"Ah!" The boy breathed an inaudible sigh of relief as the man moved, allowing a full view of the map. "Now, if only I can do it!"

With the greatest care, he thrust the triangle of steel upon which the powder rested through a crack. Next he adjusted a small black box before the crack, but lower down. Then, with a hand that still trembled slightly in spite of his efforts at self control, he drew a sulphur match across a dry bit of wood.

The sulphur fumes rose and floated through the cracks. At the same time there came the faint sput-sput-sput of a burning fuse. One of the Spaniards arose and sniffed the air. He spoke a word to a companion. They turned half about. And still the fuse burned. Shorter and shorter it became, closer and closer to the powder.

The boy's heart was in his throat. Was the whole affair to be spoiled by a whiff of sulphur or a fuse that burned too long?

"If they rise, if they block the view," he thought, "then all will be-"

But no, they settled back. The whiff of sulphur had passed. But what was this? A black man jumped. Had the smell of burnt powder reached him? Had the sput-sput of the fuse reached his sensitive ear?

Whatever it was, it came too late. Of a sudden there sounded out a loud boom, and at once, for a fraction of a second, the whole place, cabin, bamboo trees, and the surrounding jungle was lighted as with a moment's return of the sun. Then came sudden and complete darkness.

Within was noise and confusion. A bushman had overturned the candle. It had gone out. In fright and rage at an unknown phenomenon, an unseen enemy, the men fought their way to the door, then out into the night. Before this happened, however, the boy, hugging his precious black box under his arm, had lost himself in the jungle.

As we have said, this boy had lived much in the tropics. The Central American jungle was not new to him. Deep secrets of these wilds had come to him by day and by night.

With the startled cries of Spaniards and bushmen ringing in his ears, he made his way swiftly, silently down a narrow deer path to a spot where he had hidden his canvas bound kit bag.

Thrusting his black box deep within the bundle, still without a light, he made his way swiftly forward until the shouts died away in the distance.

"If only it is a success!" he thought with a sigh as he paused to adjust his pack.

Coming at last to a narrow stream he cast a few darting glances about him. The jungle here was new to him, yet the bubbling stream, the moss on the tree trunks, the tossing leaves far above him, told him all he needed to know.

Turning sharply to the right, he followed a narrow trail up the winding bank of the stream.

He had been traveling steadily up this stream for more than three hours when he came upon a place where the stream was a roaring young cataract, tumbling down a series of little falls. This was the thing he had expected. He was sleepy. The night was far spent. In his pack was a mosquito bar canopy and a light, strong hammock, woven from linen thread. With these he could quickly build a safe wilderness home. In the low swamp land, where malaria and mosquitoes lurked, he did not dare to camp.

There were wild creatures in all this jungle; crocodiles, droves of wild pigs, great boa constrictors and golden coated jaguars. For this boy all these held little terror. But the swamps were not for him. The higher slopes of the narrow peninsula offered fresher air, and cooling breezes that lull one to sleep.

"Sleep," he whispered to himself, "and after that a dark place."

At that moment the moonlight, falling through an open space among the trees and spreading a yellow gleam upon the trail, showed him that which brought him up short. In a damp spot at the base of a rock were footprints, the marks of a slim foot clad in sandals, and stranger than this in so wild a spot, the marks of a leather shoe.

"Huh!" He stood for a moment in perplexity.

One who knows the jungle is seldom surprised at what he finds there. Pant was surprised. This portion of the jungle was new to him. "Twenty miles from the coast," he murmured. "How strange!"

More was to follow. He had not gone a hundred yards farther before he came upon a well-beaten road. A little beyond this spot, in the midst of a broad clearing, half hidden by stately royal palms, gleaming white in the moonlight, was a long, low stone house which in this land might almost pass for a mansion.

Pausing, he stood there in the moonlight, staring and irresolute. It had all come to him in a flash.

"The last of the Dons," he said to himself. Something akin to awe crept into his tone. "I had forgotten."

"But what now?" he asked himself a moment later. "The jungle or this?"

In the end he chose the castle before him. "Might be a dark place up there somewhere, an abandoned cellar perhaps," was his final comment.

Having chosen a secluded spot at the side of the trail where he might hang his hammock and spread his canopy to sleep the rest of the night through, he went quickly to rest.

"I have heard that they are friendly, and honorable Spaniards. There are such, plenty of them. I'll risk it. I-"

At that, with the breeze swaying his hammock, he fell asleep.

The sun was sending its first yellow gleams among the palms when he awoke. For a time, with the damp sweet odor of morning in his nostrils, he lay there thinking.

A strange mission had brought him into the jungle. This strange boy had grown up with little or no knowledge of blood relations. His father and mother were but a dim, indistinct memory. They had passed from his life; he did not know exactly how. No cozy home fireside had gleamed for him. He had gone out into the world with an unanswered longing for some one whom he might think of as a kinsman. Bravely he had fought his way through alone. When Johnny Thompson came into his life and remained there to become his inseparable pal, life had been more joyous. Yet ever there remained a haunting dream that somehow, somewhere in his wild wanderings he would come upon one who bore his name, who could give him the traditions of a family and of a past.

Strangely enough, it had been at the edge of the Central American jungle that he came upon this person of his dreams. While walking upon the coral beach he had met a stately, white-haired old man who had the military bearing of a colonel.

In this old man he had found a friend. Little enough was left of the fortunes which from time to time had come to the venerable southerner. But such as he had he shared unsparingly with the young stranger who had come so recently from the land of his birth; for Colonel Longstreet, as the patriarch styled himself, though now for more than sixty years a resident of Central America, had fought valiantly for a lost cause when the Gray stood embattled against the Blue in that long and terrible struggle, the Civil War.

Broken hearted because of the outcome of the war, he had left his native state of Virginia and had come to Central America. His life had been further embittered by the early death of his wife. His only child, a boy of ten, had been sent back to Virginia while he struggled on, wresting a fortune from the jungle.

Life in Central America is one gamble after another. Longstreet had played in every game. He had always won, in the end to lose again. Fortunes in sugar, bananas and mahogany had been his. Sudden drops in prices, a revolution, the dread Panama disease, had cost him all of these. Now he was playing a last, lone card. Influential friends were endeavoring to secure for him a concession for gathering chicle on broad tracts of Government land.

This was the state of affairs when Pant had made his acquaintance. Hardly had their acquaintance ripened into deep friendship when they made the sudden and startling discovery that Pant was the son of the boy who had been sent back by Colonel Longstreet to Virginia, that Colonel Longstreet was none other than Pant's grandfather. From that time forth the strange boy, who had longed for so many lonely years for one of kin, became the old man's devoted slave.

There was need enough at the present time for such devotion.

Fortune had seemed to smile at last. Through the influence of his friends, a concession from the British Government for gathering chicle had come from England to Colonel Longstreet.

"Chicle, as you may know," the old man had smiled, as he told Pant of it, "is the basis of all good chewing gum. Were it not for the great American game of chewing it wouldn't be worth a red cent. As it is, with one company importing two million dollars worth a year and other smaller companies competing and yelling for more, there's a fortune in it. There is a net profit of twenty-five cents a pound on chicle. With proper working, our tract should yield between twenty-five and fifty thousand pounds a year."

With the writings of agreement had come a map showing the exact boundaries of the Government tract they had leased. To the right and above this tract was shown on the map the holdings of a powerful American organization. To the left were tracts leased by an unprincipled Spaniard named Diaz.

Two days after news of the fortunate concession had gone about the little city, Diaz had appeared in the Colonel's small office. He offered a ridiculously low price for the concession. His offer was rejected. He was told that the owner meant to work the concession. He shrugged his shoulders and said:

"No get the men."

The old man had straightened to his full height as he informed the Spaniard that he had men who could be depended upon to go anywhere, to do anything. They had worked with him and knew the honor that lay behind the Longstreet name.

Diaz had begged, entreated, stormed, threatened, then in a rage had left the office.

Two days had passed. On the third day Pant had come to the office only to find the safe looted, the map gone.

"What can we do?" he asked. "We know Diaz has it, but we can't prove it."

"We cannot," the old Colonel had agreed. "Nor is there a chance of getting another before it is too late. The bleeding season for chicle begins with the first rainfall. To begin without a map is to court disaster. With a big and jealous American company on one side of us and a crooked Spaniard on the other, we are between the rocks and the tide. We are sure to encroach upon one or the other. And if we do, it will take all we have to fight their claims. It looks like defeat." He had cupped his hands and had stared gloomily at the sea.

"Wait," Pant had said. "Johnny Thompson will help us out. Give us a little time. We'll find the map. Leave it to us."

Johnny Thompson, as you already know, could not help. He was not there. Two days before he had gone up the Stann Creek Railway. He had not returned. He was in jail. Pant had been obliged to go it alone. "And now in this short time," he told himself, "I have located the map here in the heart of the jungle. No, I haven't got it. That couldn't be done without bloodshed. But I have its equivalent, I hope.

"A dark place!" he exclaimed. "I must find a spot that is absolutely dark."

As he sprang from his hammock he paused to listen. Some one was singing. In a clear girlish voice there came the words of a quaint old Spanish song.

As he parted the branches he saw a plump Spanish girl, with a round face and sober brown eyes, tripping barefoot down the path. Balanced on her head was a large stone jar.

"Going for the morning water," the boy told himself. "How like those old Bible pictures it all is!"

Twenty minutes later he found himself within the white walls of that ancient and mysterious castle, which had a few hours before loomed so wonderfully out of the night.