Shes Forbidden

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?=

0@:5

"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.