by Jack London
“Go away,” he said. “Depart, restless old man. “You are a spirit. Thy body lies drowned and horrible in the heart of the mountain. You are an appearance, a ghost. Go away, nothing corporeal resides in this illusion of you, else would I strike you. You are a ghost. Depart at once. I should not like to strike a ghost.”
But the ghost seized his hands and clung to them with ouch beseeching corporality as to unconvince him.
“Money,” the ancient one babbled. “Let me have money. Lend me money. I will repay! I who know the secrets of the Maya treasure. My son is lost in the mountain with the treasure. The Gringos also are lost in the mountain. Help me to rescue my son. With him alone will I be satisfied, while the treasure shall all be yours. But we must take men, and much of the white man’s wonderful powder and tear a hole out of the mountain so that the water will run away. He is not drowned. He is a prisoner of the water in the room where stand the jewel-eyed Chia and Hzatzl. Their eyes of green and red alone will pay for all the wonderful powder in the world. So let me have the money with which to buy the wonderful powder.”
But Alvarez Torres was a strangely constituted man. Some warp or slant or idiosyncrasy of his nature always raised insuperable obstacles to his parting with money when such parting was unavoidable. And the richer he got the more positively this idiosyncrasy asserted itself.
“Money!” he asserted harshly, as he thrust the old priest aside and pulled open the door of Fernandez’s store. “Is it I who should have money. I who am all rags and tatters as a beggar. I have no money for myself, much less for you, old man. Besides, it was you, and not I, who led your son to the Maya mountain. On your head be it, not on mine, the death of your son who fell into the pit under the feet of Chia that was digged by your ancestors and not by mine.”
Again the ancient one clutched at him and yammered for money with which to buy dynamite. So roughly did Torres thrust him aside that his old legs failed to perform their wonted duty and he fell upon the flagstones.
The shop of Rodriguez Fernandez was small and dirty, and contained scarcely more than a small and dirty showcase that rested upon an equally small and dirty counter. The place was grimy with the undusted and unswept filth of a generation. Lizards and cockroaches crawled along the walls. Spiders webbed in every corner, and Torres saw, crossing the ceiling above, what made him step hastily to the side. It was a seven-inch centipede which he did not care to have fall casually upon his head or down his back between shirt and skin. And, when he appeared crawling out like a huge spider himself from some inner den of an unventilated cubicle, Fernandez looked like an Elizabethan stage-representation of Shylock withal he was a dirtier Shylock than even the Elizabethan stage could have stomached.
The jeweler fawned to Torres and in a cracked falsetto humbled himself even beneath the dirt of his shop. Torres pulled from his pocket a haphazard dozen or more of the gems filched from the Queen’s chest, selected the smallest, and, without a word, while at the same time returning the rest to his pocket, passed it over to the jeweler.
“I am a poor man,” he cackled, the while Torres could not fail to see how keenly he scrutinised the gem.
He dropped it on the top of the show case as of little worth, and looked inquiringly at his customer. But Torres waited in a silence which he knew would compel the garrulity of covetous age to utterance.
“Do I understand that the honorable Senor Torres seeks advice about the quality of the stone?” the old jeweler finally quavered.
Torres did no more than nod curtly.
“It is a natural gem. It is small. It, as you can see for yourself, is not perfect. And it is clear that much of it will be lost in the cutting.”
“How much is it worth?” Torres demanded with impatient bluntness.
“I am a poor man,” Fernandez reiterated.
“I have not asked you to buy it, old fool. But now that you bring the matter up, how much will you give for it?”
“As I was saying, craving your patience, honorable senor, as I was saying, I am a very poor man. There are days when I cannot spend ten centavos for a morsel of spoiled fish. There are days when I cannot afford a sip of the cheap red wine I learned was tonic to my system when I was a lad, far from Barcelona, serving my apprenticeship in Italy. I am so very poor that I do not buy costly pretties
“Not to sell again at a profit?” Torres cut in.
“If I am sure of my profit,” the old man cackled. “Yes, then will I buy; but, being poor, I cannot pay more than little.” He picked up the gem and studied it long and carefully. “I would give,” he began hesitatingly, “I would give but, please, honorable senor, know that I am a very poor man. This day only a spoonful of onion soup, with my morning coffee and a mouthful of crust, passed my lips-”
“In God’s name, old fool, what will you give?” Torres thundered.
“Five hundred dollars but I doubt the profit that will remain to me.”
“Gold?”
“Mex.,” came the reply, which cut the offer in half and which Torres knew was a lie. “Of course, Mex., only Mex., all our transactions are in Mex.”
Despite his elation at so large a price for so small a gem, Torres play-acted impatience as he reached to take back the gem. But the old man jerkgd his hand away, loath to let go of the bargain it contained.
“We are old’ friends,” he cackled shrilly. “I first saw you, when, a boy, you came to San Antonio from Boca del Toros. And, as between old friends, we will say the sum is gold.”
And Torres caught a sure but vague glimpse of the enormousness, as well as genuineness, of the Queen’s treasure which at some remote time the Lost Souls had ravished from its hiding place in the Maya Mountain.
“Very good,” said Torres, with a quick, cavalier action recovering the stone. “It belongs to a friend of mine. He wanted to borrow money from me on it. I can now lend him up to five hundred gold on it, thanks to your information. And I shall be grateful to buy for you, the next time we meet in the pulqueria, a drink yes, as many drinks as you can care to carry of the thin, red, tonic wine.”
And as Torres passed out of the shop, not in any way attempting to hide the scorn and contempt he felt for the fool he had made of the jeweler, he knew elation in that Fernandez, the Spanish fox, must have cut his estimate of the gem’s value fully in half when he uttered it.
In the meanwhile, descending the Gualaca River by canoe, Leoncia, the Queen, and the two Morgans, had made better time than Torres to the coast. But ere their arrival and briefly pending it, a matter of moment that was not appreciated at the time, had occurred at the Solano hacienda. Climbing the winding pathway to the hacienda, accompanied by a decrepit old crone whose black shawl over head and shoulders could not quite hide the lean and withered face of blasted volcanic fire, came as strange a caller as the hacienda had ever received.
He was a Chinaman, middle-aged and fat, whose moonlace beamed the beneficent good nature that seems usual with fat persons. By name, Yi Poon, meaning “the Cream of the Custard Apple,” his manners were as softly and richly oily as his name. To the old crone, who tottered beside him and was half ��� supported by him, he was the quintessence of gentleness and consideration. When she faltered from sheer physical weakness and would have fallen, he paused and gave her chance to gain strength and breath. Thrice, at such times, on the climb to the hacienda, he fed her a spoonful of French brandy from a screw-cap pocket flask.
Seating the old woman in a selected, shady corner of the piazza, Yi Poon boldly knocked for admittance at the front door. To him, and in his business, back-stairs was the accustomed way; but his business and his wdt had taught him the times when front entrances were imperative.
The Indian maid who answered his knock, took his message into the living room wiiere sat the disconsolate Enrico Solano among his sons disconsolate at the report Bicardo had brought in of the loss of Leoncia in the Maya Mountain. The Indian maid returned to the door. The Senor Solano was indisposed and would see nobody, was her report, hum
bly delivered, even though the recipient was a Chinese.
“Huh!” observed Yi Poon, with braggart confidence for the purpose of awing the maid to carrying a second message. “I am no coolie. I am smart Chinaman. I go to school plenty much. I speak Spanish. I speak English. I write Spanish. I write English. See I write now in Spanish for the Senor Solano. You cannot write, so you cannot read what I write. I write that I am Yi Poon. I belong Colon. I come this place to see Senor Solano. Big business. Much important. Very secret. I write all this here on paper which you cannot read.”
But he did not say that he had further written: “The Senorita Solano. I have great secret.”
It was Alesandro, the eldest of the tall sons of Solano, who evidently had received the note, for he came bounding to the door, far outstripping the returning maid.
“Tell me your business!” he almost shouted at the fat Chinese. “What is it? Quick!”
“Very good business,” was the reply, Yi Poon noting the other’s excitement with satisfaction. “I make much money. I buy what you call secrets. I sell secrets. Very nice business.”
“What do you know about the Senorita Solano?” Alesandro shouted, gripping him by the shoulder.
“Everything. Very important information���”
But Alesandro could no longer control himself. He almost hurled the Chinaman into the house, and, not relaxing his grip, rushed him on into the living room and up to Enrico.
“He has news of Leoncia!” Alesandro shouted.
“Where is she?” Enrico and his sons shouted in chorus.
Hah! was Yi Poon’s thought. Such excitement, although it augured well for his business, was rather exciting for him as well.
Mistaking his busy thinking for fright, Enrico stilled his sons back with an upraised hand, and addressed the visitor quietly.
“Where is she?” Enrico asked.
Hah! thought Yi Poon. The senorita was lost. That was a new secret. It might be worth something some day, or any day. A nice girl, of high family and wealth such as the Solanos, lost in a Latin-American country, was information well worth possessing. Some day she might be married there was that gossip he had heard in Colon and some later day she might have trouble with her husband or her husband have trouble with her ��� at which time, she or her husband, it mattered not which, might be eager to pay high for the secret.
“This Senorita Leoncia,” he said, finally, with sleek suavity. “She is not your girl. She has other papa and mama.”
But Enrico’s present grief at her loss was too great to permit startlement at this explicit statement of an old secret. “Yes,” he nodded. “Though it is not known outside my family, I adopted her when she was a baby. It is strange that you should know this. But I am not interested in having you tell me what I have long since known. What I want to know now is: where is she now?”
Yi Poon gravely and sympathetically shook his head.
“That is different secret,” he explained. “Maybe I find that secret. Then I sell it to you. But I have old secret. You do not know the name of the Senorita Leoncia’s papa and mama. I know.”
And old Enrico Solano could not hide his interest at the temptation of such information.
“Speak,” he commanded. “Name the names, and prove them, and I shall reward.”
“No,” Yi Poon shook his head. “Very poor business. I no do business that way. You pay me I tell you. My secrets good secrets. I prove my secrets. You give me five hundred pesos and big expenses from Colon to San Antonio and back to Colon and I tell you name of papa and mama.”
Enrico Solano bowed acquiescence, and was just in the act of ordering Alesandro to go and fetch the money, when the quiet, spirit-subdued Indian maid created a diversion. Bunning into the room and up to Enrico as they had never seen her run before, she wrung her hands and wept so incoherently that they knew her paroxysm was of joy, not of sadness.
“The Senorita!” she was finally able to whisper hoarsely, as she indicated the side piazza with a nod of head and glance of eyes. “The Senorita!”
And Yi Poon and his secret were forgotten. Enrico and his sons streamed out to the side piazza to behold Leoncia and the Queen and the two Morgans, dropping dust-covered off the backs of riding mules recognizable as from the pastures of the mouth of the Gualaca Kiver. At the same time two Indian man-servants, summoned by the maid, cleared the house and grounds of the fat Chinaman and his old crone of a companion.
“Come some other time,” they told him. “Just now the Senor Solano is very importantly busy.”
“Sure, I come some other time,” Yi Poon assured them pleasantly, without resentment and without betrayal of the disappointment that was his at his deal interrupted just ere the money was paid into his hand.
But he departed reluctantly. The place was good for his business. It was sprouting secrets. Never was there a riper harvest in Canaan out of which, sickle in hand, a husbandman was driven! Had it not been for the zealous Indian attendants, Yi Poon would have darted around the corner of the hacienda to note the newcomers. As it was, half way down the hill, finding the weight of the crone too fatiguing, he put into her the life and ability to carry her own weight a little farther by feeding her a double teaspoonf ul of brandy from his screw-top flask.
Enrico swept Leoncia off her mule ere she could dismount, so passionately eager was he to fold her in his arms. For several minutes ensued naught but noisy Latin affection as her brothers all strove to greet and embrace her at once. When they recollected themselves, Francis had already helped the Lady Who Dreams from her mount, and beside her, her hand in his, was waiting recognition.
“This is my wife,” Francis told Enrico. “I went into the Cordilleras after treasure, and behold what I found. Was there ever better fortune?”
And she sacrificed a great treasure herself,” Leoncia murmured bravely.
“She was queen of a little kingdom,” Francis added, with a grateful and admiring flash of eyes to Leoncia, who quickly added:
“And she saved all our lives but sacrificed her little kingdom in so doing.”
And Leoncia, in an exaltation of generousness, put her arm around the Queen’s waist, took her away from Francis, and led the way into the hacienda.
CHAPTER XXIII
IN all the magnificence of medieval Spanish and New World costume such as was still affected by certain of the great haciendados of Panama, Torres rode along the beach-road to the home of the Solanos. Running with him, at so easy a lope that it promised an extension that would outspeed the best of Torres’ steed, was the great white hound that had followed him down the subterranean river. As Torres turned to take the winding road up the hill to the hacienda, he passed Yi Poon, who had paused to let the old crone gather strength. He merely noticed the strange couple as dirt of the common people. The hauteur that he put on with his magnificence of apparel forbade that he should betray any interest further than an unseeing glance.
But him Yi Poon noted with slant Oriental eyes that missed no details. And Yi Poon thought: He looks very rich. He is a friend of the Solanos. He rides to the house. He may even be a lover of the Senorita Leoncia. Or a worsted rival for her love. In almost any case, he might be expected to buy the secret of the Senorita Leoncia’s birth, and he certainly looks rich, most rich.
Inside the hacienda, assembled in the living room, were the returned adventurers and all the Solanos. The Queen, taking her turn in piecing out the narrative of all that had occurred, with flashing eyes was denouncing Torres for his theft of her jewels and describing his fall into the whirlpool before the onslaught of the hound, when Leoncia, at the window with Henry, uttered a sharp exclamation.
“Speak of the devil!” said Henry. “Here comes Torres himself.”
“Me first!” Francis cried, doubling his fist and flexing his biceps significantly.
“No,” decreed Leoncia. “He is a wonderful liar. He is a very Wonderful liar, as we’ve all found out. Let us have some fun, He is dismounting now. Let the four of u
s dis��� appear. Father!” With a wave of hand she indicated Enrico and all his sons. “You will sit around desolated over the loss of me. This scoundrel Torres will enter. You will be thirsty for information. He will tell you no one can guess what astounding lies about us. As for us, we’ll hide behind the screen there. Come! All of you!”
And, catching the Queen by the hand and leading the way, with her eyes she commanded Francis and Henry to follow to the hiding place.
And Torres entered upon a scene of sorrow which had been so recently real that Enrico and his sons had no difficulty in acting it. Enrico started up from his chair in eagerness of welcome and sank weakly back. Torres caught the other’s hand in both his own and manifested deep sympathy and could not speak from emotion.
“Alas!” he finally managed heart-brokenly. “They are dead. She is dead, your beautiful daughter, Leoncia. And the two Gringo Morgans are dead with her. As Eicardo, there, must know, they died in the heart of the Maya Mountain.
“It is the home of mystery,” he continued, after giving due time for the subsidence of the first violent outburst of Enrico’s grief. “I was with them when they died. Had they followed my counsel, they would all have lived. But not even Leoncia would listen to the old friend of the Solanos. No, she must listen to the two Gringos. After incredible dangers I won my way out through the heart of the mountain, gazed down into the Valley of Lost Souls, and returned into the mountain to find them dying-”
Here, pursued by an Indian man-servant, the white hound bounded into the room, trembling and whining in excitement as with its nose it quested the multitudinous scents of the room that advertised his mistress. Before he could follow up to where the Queen hid behind the screen, Torres caught him, by the neck and turned him over to a couple of the Indian house-men to hold.
“Let the brute remain,” said Torres. “I will tell you about him afterward. But first look at this.” He pulled forth a handful of gems. “I knocked on the doors of the dead, and, behold, the Maya treasure is mine. I am the richest man in Panama, in all the Americas. I shall be powerful-”