CHAPTER IV
STRANGE HAPPENINGS
The Radio Boys solemnly gave the required promise, and listened withbreathless attention to the story that Benton unfolded.
"As I told you yesterday," he began, "my last term of service was in SanDomingo. As you know, that borders on the Caribbean Sea, the old Spanishmain that the buccaneers roved on for centuries. It's a tropicalcountry, and to my mind a God-forsaken place, whose chief products aretarantulas, spiders, centipedes and scorpions. Most of the people areblacks or half-breeds, and of course revolutions are happening thereevery little while. Their armies are only mobs that a squad of Americanpolicemen could put to flight, and the chief difference between generalsand privates is that the former have shoes while the latter arebarefooted.
"They had been having one of these little revolutions when for somereason Uncle Sam took a hand. You know he acts as a sort of policeman tokeep those little West Indian countries in order when they get a littletoo gay and frisky. At any rate, we've had a little force of marinesthere for some years past, and it happened that I was sent down therewith the last batch of leathernecks.
"It wasn't much of a task to keep the bigger towns in order, but it wasdifferent when we were sent out to clean up some of the outlaw bands inthe interior of the island. There were plenty of these, and we had towatch our step, for they were bloodthirsty rascals and if any of ourboys happened to fall into their hands it was all up with him. It wasn'tmerely death--that's part of the game in the marine service--buttorture. And those bandits certainly were experts when it came to makinga man die slow and hard."
Phil thought of Espato and his skill in the same gentle art.
"A couple of pals and myself," went on Benton, "were pushing along oneday in a desolate patch of the jungle way off from the beaten road whenwe heard shrieks coming from a cabin. We made a break for it, and founda bunch of bandits torturing an old Spaniard. He lived alone there, andsomehow the idea had got out that he had money concealed about theplace. The outlaws had felt so confident that they had everything theirown way that they hadn't set any watch and we took them by surprise.They had the old man bound on his bed, and were burning him with hotirons to make him tell them where his money was hidden. We burst in onthem while they were in the very midst of their infernal work, killedtwo of them and put the rest to flight.
"The old man was pretty well done for. It didn't seem practicable to gethim in his condition to the nearest military post which was somedistance away. So I sent the other fellows to report, and I stayed tonurse the old fellow. I didn't think he'd last out the next twenty-fourhours, but he had surprising vitality for a man of his years and it wasnearly a week before he passed away. He needed constant attention, and Iwas kept pretty well on the jump day and night.
"During that time I learned, of course, a good deal of his history. Partof it he told me, and part of it I picked up from what he kept babblingfrom time to time when he was delirious. It seemed that he had nevermarried and that he had no relative that he knew of in the world. He hadlived there for years, doing a little farming on his garden patch andgetting barely enough to keep body and soul together. As for money, hedidn't have any. That was where the bandits would have had theirtroubles for their pains.
"One morning I could see that death was pretty near, and the old manknew it too. He called me to him, thanked me over and over for what Ihad been able to do for him and then told me that he was going to giveme something that would make me rich. I thought his mind was wanderingagain, but he pointed out a place under the flooring of the cabin andasked me to dig down a couple of feet. I did it to humor him, and fishedout an old tin box. I brought it to him and he took out the papers thatI have just laid on the table."
The boys looked with the keenest interest at the package of papers thatwere mildewed and yellowed by time.
"He put those in my hands," continued Benton, "and told me they weremine. Said they had been handed down in his family for generations. Itseems that the old man himself had had dreams of following up the cluesthat were contained in them. But it would take capital and he never hadone dollar that he could lay on another. And he had been afraid to trusthis secret to anyone else for fear that he would be either cheated orperhaps killed by those he might choose as partners. And so the yearshad dragged on and he had come at last to his deathbed without everhaving derived any benefit from them. Now he gave them to me, and theonly condition he attached was that if I got any benefit from them Iwould have a candle burned in some church for the repose of his soul."
Benton paused for a moment. No one spoke. They were envisaging the sceneof that forlorn old life coming to so pitiable an end in the depths ofthe San Domingo forest.
"Of course, I promised," Benton went on, "and as a matter of fact I sawto that matter of the candle as soon as I got back to the city. I didn'tattach any importance to the old man's revelations. I'd have thought thewhole thing was simply a sick man's ravings if it hadn't been for thepapers. They at least were real, something that could be seen andhandled. Probably they wouldn't amount to anything, but they promised atleast to be a bit of interesting reading when I got back to thebarracks.
"I buried the old man near his cabin and then hiked back to the nearestpost. I was kept pretty busy for some time, and the papers remainedstowed away in my kit bag.
"After a while, our squad was relieved from the interior work and sentback to the capital for a breathing spell and the mere routine dutycalled for. One day when I was off duty and time was hanging a littleheavy on my hands, I though of the papers and fished them out. They hadto be handled with care, as some of them were nearly falling to pieces.
"I soon found however that they didn't do me much good, for they werewritten in Spanish. Of course, in knocking about those countries I hadpicked up a good deal of the lingo, enough to get by with in ordinaryconversation. But that didn't help me so much when it came to readingabout unfamiliar things, especially in the Spanish of two hundred yearsago.
"And just here is where I made a mistake. There was a half breed thatdid odd jobs about the post, a fellow named Ramirez. He happened to bepassing through the barracks just then on an errand for one of theofficers, and I called him and asked him to translate one of the papersfor me.
"He agreed, after bargaining that I should give him an American quarterfor the job, which I did. He commenced to read. I listened for a while,and then I began to sit up and take notice. Believe me that by this timehe was taking notice too. His hands were trembling, his voice was shakyand his eyes--he had about the wickedest pair of eyes I ever saw in ahuman head--were fairly shining with greediness.
"I snatched the paper back from him. He begged like a cripple to let himgo on with it. Offered to give me back my quarter and do it for nothing.But by that time I was wise to the mistake I had made and told him to goalong and roll his hoop. His eyes were like those of a rattlesnake whenhe realized I was in earnest.
"After I had finally got rid of him, I did some tall thinking. I got adictionary and a grammar and settled down to learn the language. I tooksome lessons also from the old padre of the church in which I had burnedthe candle. He was delighted at my sudden interest in what he called his'beautiful mother tongue,' and did all he could to help me along. So inthe course of time I was able to get the sense of these papers. Some ofthe words are blurred and some have been wiped out by time, but what Icouldn't read I could at least make a very fair guess at.
"Before I had received the papers I had fully made up my mind tore-enlist, for as I told you before I was in love with the service. Butafter I had read them I began to count the days before my present termshould expire. I had made up my mind that I was going to take a chance.I might fail, but if I did there was the good old service waiting for meat any time. And if I succeeded, there wouldn't be need of worryingabout anything for the rest of my life.
"And now," he continued, as he knocked the ash from his cigar andglanced at the faces of his
spellbound auditors, "that about brings meup to the present time. Oh yes, there's one thing more--about thatRamirez.
"That fellow dogged me like my shadow for the rest of the time I was inSan Domingo. He kept turning up at the most unexpected places. I gottired of it at last and told him to keep out of my way or he'd be sorryfor it. One night when we were camping out, I woke up to find someonerifling my kit in my tent. I jumped up and tackled him, but he got awayafter knifing me in the arm."
He rolled up his sleeve and showed a deep scar just above the elbow.
"That's the memento he left me," he remarked grimly. "In the darkness Icouldn't be sure, but I thought I recognized Ramirez. The first thing Idid after getting a light and binding up my arm was to look for thepapers. Luckily they were at the bottom of my kit and the thief hadn'tgot to them when I woke up. Another thing that makes me think it wasRamirez is that the rascal disappeared from his usual haunts after thatand I've never seen anything of him since. But it goes to show," headded with that whimsical smile of his, "that I'm not the only one whoattaches some importance to these papers.
"Now let's see how they strike you," he continued, drawing his chaircloser to the table, while the Radio Boys crowded eagerly about him.
The Radio Boys Under the Sea; or, The Hunt for Sunken Treasure Page 4