THE INTRUDER FROM ECUADOR
The voice of Señor Ramon Bazán cracked with excitement as he cried out,
from the bridge of the _Valkyrie_:
“Behold our Cocos Island, my Ricardo! You have steered the ship as
straight as an arrow.”
They were gazing at a lofty, rounded hill that lifted from the sea like
the cone of a dead volcano. For the most part its slopes were green,
with bare cliffs here and there or yellow gullies washed by the rains.
In the top of this hill was a bowl or crater which seemed to brim over
with water like a tiny lake, spilling many streams that leaped and
flowed to the strip of level land, close to the sea, which was luxuriant
with cocoanut palms. A pleasant island to visit, as the buccaneers had
found it when first their topsails had gleamed in the South Sea.
It was no longer a secret to the _Valkyrie_’s crew that they were bound
in search of pirates’ treasure. Captain Richard Cary had told them so,
soon after the departure from Balboa. He had pledged them his word that
if they played fair with him they should receive a share of the booty.
They believed him. The Colombian sailors and firemen yelled with
enthusiasm. They had completely forgotten the conspiracy to take the
ship back to Cartagena and claim the reward offered for _El Tigre
Amarillo Grande_, dead or alive. It had been a foolish dream of very
stupid men, they admitted among themselves. Their huge captain had saved
the wretched steamer from perishing in the storm on the Caribbean coast.
After that, he had enforced such a discipline and mastery as they had
never known in their lives, the rule of a sea-lord who was both stern
and kind. He held them under his thumb. It was even a pleasure to obey
him for the sake of the sunny smile and the word of praise that followed
duty well done.
With chart and sounding lead, the _Valkyrie_ slowly approached Cocos
Island to find the small bay which was indicated as an anchorage. As the
bay opened to view between its rock-bound headlands, the masts of a
schooner became visible. Señor Ramon Bazán was greatly disturbed. He
snatched up the binocular and squinted until the hull of the schooner
was disclosed.
“By my soul, it is another treasure party!” he wildly shouted. “They
will find out my secret of the place where it is hidden.”
“We can’t very well stick up no trespass signs on Cocos Island,” said
Cary, in his easy fashion. “It doesn’t belong to us.”
Chief Officer Bradley Duff broke in to say: “No sense in borrowing
trouble, Señor Bazán. Of course you were all wrapped up in your own pet
scheme, but it is no great surprise to me to find another party here.
They have been at it on and off, all kinds of expeditions, as long as
I’ve known this coast. If you have the real information, then the rest
of ’em are out of luck. We won’t let this other outfit crowd us.”
“We will make them mind their own business,” grumbled Señor Bazán, in a
very fretful humor. “I bought those rifles in Panama, Ricardo, to guard
the treasure after we find it, but nobody must interfere with us at all.
Do you understand that?”
“Wait and look it over,” placidly advised Ricardo. “There seems to be
plenty of elbow room on the island. The schooner may have touched here
out of curiosity.”
The _Valkyrie_ nosed her way inside the bay and let an anchor splash a
few hundred feet from the three-masted schooner which flew no colors.
Several South Americans lounged beneath an awning. They looked like
seamen left in charge while the rest of the company went ashore. One of
them flourished his big straw hat in a friendly gesture.
“Better send the second mate over with a couple of men, Mr. Duff,”
suggested Captain Cary. “Mr. Panchito is a sociable cuss and perhaps he
can find out something.”
The rotund, vivacious Mr. Panchito was delighted to oblige. As a former
officer of the Colombian navy, he flattered himself that he possessed
the aplomb, the diplomatic approach. He assured Mr. Duff that he would
turn those strangers inside out. They could conceal nothing from him.
Into a skiff he bounded and was rowed over to the schooner which
displayed no symptoms of excitement.
Señor Ramon Bazán, on the contrary, was in a stew of impatience to be
set ashore. It was the noon hour, and the sun was insufferably hot for a
rickety old gentleman to explore the jungle and the rocky ravines.
Richard Cary advised waiting, but was met with sputtering obstinacy.
They were to take the precious chart drawn by the own hand of the
infamous Captain Thompson of the brig _Mary Dear_, also a compass and a
surveyor’s chain to measure the distances in rods and feet. After
finding the lay of the land they could rest much easier. At their
convenience they could unload the equipment and make a camp.
Richard Cary kept his own misgivings to himself. It had strained his
credulity to accept the secret chart as authentic. Granted this,
however, the face of the island must have been considerably changed in a
hundred years. Naked scars showed where the rock and gravel had slid
from the steep hillsides. The water overflowing the crater-like bowl fed
by living springs had been eating the soil away and depositing it
elsewhere. The cliffs, however, might have resisted this erosion. If
there were natural caves in them, and these had not been buried too deep
in débris, possibly the treasure chart of Señor Bazán might be used as a
guide.
The blurred notations and rude symbols had been inscribed on the chart
by the hand of a man familiar with Cocos Island. The safe channel for a
vessel entering the bay was correctly indicated. And in these first
glimpses of the rugged landscape, it was mightily persuasive to study
such detailed directions as “_N.N.E. 5 rds. to water-course. . . thence
9 rds. 7 ft. E. by W. ½ W. to face of cliff. . . thence follow ravine to
big boulder bearing S.S.W. from hump of Hill & due South from Stone on
beach which Stone is carved with letters H.M.S. Jason 1789_:. . .”
There was some delay in getting the exploring party ashore. Señor Bazán
had to be humored. A pitiable agitation muddled his wits. He had to pore
over the chart again. Compass and surveyor’s chain were not enough, he
suddenly decided. They ought to carry axes, picks, and shovels, on the
chance of stumbling across the place where the treasure was unmistakably
concealed. Some of the crew must go with them and carry rifles. There
were strangers on the island. They might be lawless men. It was for
Ricardo to be prepared to drive them away if they came near enough even
to spy on the party from the _Valkyrie_.
By this time Mr. Panchito was returning from his diplomatic mission to
the schooner. He was all animation and importance. Yes, he had found out
everything. It was a treasure expedition, from Guayaquil. They had been
three months on the island, and the sailors were very tired of it. Now
they felt in better spirits because their leader had been overheard to
say that he had given up hopes of finding any gold and silver. He would
soon be sailing back to Guayaquil. He was a most extraordinary man, this
leader. He had attacked Cocos Island as if he intended to tear it to
pieces, with powerful machinery that tossed the great rocks about like
pebbles and moved thousands of tons of gravel. He was a mining engineer
well known in Ecuador.
“Did they tell you his name?” interrupted Chief Officer Bradley Duff.
“Don Miguel O’Donnell, but he is not Irish,” replied Mr. Panchito.
“Huh, I know that,” grunted Mr. Duff. “It’s like the O’Reilleys in Cuba
and the O’Higgins in Chile. They were Irish some ways back. And it still
crops out in their blood. And so we’ve run afoul of this O’Donnell
highbinder from Ecuador! Now what do you think of that! He calls himself
a mining engineer, does he? Maybe he is. All I know is that he has been
mixed up in trouble enough to please any Mike O’Donnell. Concessions and
politics and high-class devilment in Ecuador for years and years. I was
captain of a dredge in Guayaquil harbor one time. From the stories I
heard, it was Don Miguel O’Donnell that really backed General Eloy
Alfara in the revolution of 1905 that bumped President Cordero off his
perch. How about it, Señor Bazán? You may have the straight dope.”
Ramon Bazán was more troubled than ever. He took hold of the ship’s rail
for support. Wearing a great cork helmet and leather gaiters, a canteen
slung over his shoulder, he looked like a queer little caricature of a
tropical explorer.
“Don Miguel O’Donnell on Cocos Island?” he wheezed, in a gusty flare of
passion. “May he suffer ten million torments! Colombia knows him as well
as Ecuador, Mr. Duff. He is very wise and very bold, a man of brains. I
tell you, we must sleep with both eyes open. Bad luck has come to us. If
Don Miguel O’Donnell suspects us of knowing where the treasure is, he
will stop at nothing at all. A soldier of fortune, Ricardo? This one is
a _piratico_ of the most up-to-date pattern.”
“He sounds entertaining,” hopefully suggested Ricardo. “He does things
in the grand manner. Just now he is tearing Cocos Island to pieces, or
pulling it up by the roots, according to Mr. Panchito. I like his
style.”
“The grand manner is right,” grumbled Bradley Duff. “Somebody staked him
on this proposition. A syndicate, perhaps. He always talks big and gets
away with it.”
It was apparent to Richard Cary that old Ramon Bazán had been shaken by
enough excitement for one day. Don Miguel O’Donnell was the last straw.
It was therefore sensible to suggest:
“Why not sit tight aboard ship for a day or two and see if this other
outfit really intends to weigh anchor? Mr. Panchito has a notion that
they are about through. Unless we show our hand, this enterprising
gentleman from Ecuador won’t think of interfering with us.”
“Right you are, Captain Cary,” agreed Bradley Duff. “Let’s wait him out.
It may avoid getting in a jam. Why not keep our business to ourselves?”
This rational advice infuriated Señor Bazán. Wait in idleness on the
deck of a ship and look at the cliffs of Cocos Island with its fabulous
riches almost within his grasp? Why had he placed this giant of a
Captain Ricardo in command of the expedition? To smash through all
obstacles, to use his wonderful strength and courage. Was the Yellow
Tiger of Cartagena afraid of matching himself against this Don Miguel
O’Donnell? He, Ramon Bazán, was an aged man with one foot in the grave,
but he was eager to go ashore and begin operations. There were men and
rifles enough. . .
The tirade was quelled by Ricardo, who thrust his employer into a
deck-chair, fanned him with the cork helmet, and announced:
“If you rave any more, Papa Bazán, your heart will go funny, and then
where are you? Unless you take care of yourself, I can’t let you go
ashore at all. You are not fit to leave the ship to-day. Now please stay
in the shade and keep cool and collected.”
This high-handed behavior dumbfounded poor Papa Bazán. He dashed the
cork helmet to the deck and kicked it like a football. Ricardo
pleasantly suggested tucking him in and locking the door. This ended the
tantrum. The owner of the _Valkyrie_ curled up in the chair and
disconsolately talked to himself.
The boyish chief engineer, Charlie Burnham, came strolling along,
bright-eyed and eager to insert himself into whatever ructions might
show above the horizon.
“Come along with me, Charlie,” said Captain Cary. “Let’s take a look at
this Cocos Island. I may pay Don Miguel O’Donnell a social call. Keep a
sharp watch, Mr. Duff, and let nobody aboard from the schooner.”
“Atta boy!” blithely exclaimed Charlie Burnham. “Why not take the whole
crew and run these Ecuador outlaws plumb off the island? They have had a
fair crack at it, haven’t they? Three months is enough. Time’s up.”
Woefully forlorn, Señor Bazán watched them set out for the beach in the
skiff. Before striking inland they paused to examine the boulders strewn
above high-water mark. On this one and that were roughly chiseled the
names of ships which had visited Cocos Island at various times. It had
become a custom singularly interesting. Richard Cary felt a thrill when
he discovered a massive stone on which the weather had almost
obliterated the lettering, but it was possible to decipher this much:
“_H . . J . . . N-1-7-9_—”
“Here we are, Charlie,” cried Richard Cary. “We couldn’t ask anything
better than this. This must be ‘_H.M.S. Jason 1789_.’ Now we head due
north to what the chart calls ‘the hump of the hill.’ We are going at
the thing backward, but this is good enough for to-day. I want to work
out a rough position and select a place for a camp. We may have to cut a
trail and so on.”
To their surprise and uneasiness, a trail already led due north from the
stone on the beach. The trees and undergrowth had been chopped out,
holes filled with broken stone, two or three small water-courses bridged
with logs and plank. Wheeled vehicles had worn deep ruts in the soil.
The crew of the schooner must have dragged heavy burdens over this
pathway through the cocoanut groves and jungle. Observant Charlie
Burnham picked up an iron bolt and a pipe coupling of large dimensions.
He remarked that it knocked the romance out of treasure hunting when you
made an engineering job of it.
Curiosity urged them along at a breathless gait. They emerged into the
wide bed of a dry ravine and followed the path until it climbed to a
small plateau or level area barricaded on one side by crumbling cliffs.
They could hear the noise of rushing water. It was as loud as a
cataract. They halted to reconnoiter. Charlie Burnham craned his neck to
stare up at the broken slope of the great hill that towered far above
the cliffs, the hill that loomed so conspicuously from seaward like a
dead crater.
“Do you see that rusty streak that runs down the hill, Captain Cary?
I’ve guessed it. This Don Miguel O’Donnell has tapped the little lake
way up yonder. That streak is a line of pipe. He has a dandy head of
pressure for hydraulic mining. Tearing the island to pieces? I’ll say he
is. He’s trying to wash the treasure out. Some stunt!”
They followed the noise of rushing water and came to chaotic banks of
gravel and a wooden sluice-box that poured its muddy torrent into a
brook. A little way beyond it was a tent, and several huts built of
boards. What fascinated them was a heavy steel nozzle at the end of the
iron pipe leading down the hillside. A solid stream of water leaped from
the nozzle. One man easily guided and turned it as a gunner lays his
piece on the mark.
The water was like a projectile. It bored into the looser soil of the
hill where it had slid down to pile up at the base of the cliff. Gravel
and broken rock were swept down to the sluice or flung aside.
“And to think we have got to break our backs with the old pick and
shovel, or drilling holes for blasting charges,” lamented Charlie
Burnham.
“But this bright scheme hasn’t found any treasure for him,” replied
Cary.
They advanced toward the tent. A hammock was swung near it. In it
reclined a man who smoked a cigar and read a book. He glanced up, was
quickly on his feet, and walked to meet the visitors. Don Miguel
O’Donnell was much nearer sixty than fifty years old, but physically he
appeared to be in his prime. He was well-knit, vigorous, and taller than
the average. His cheek was ruddy. At the corners of his eyes, however,
the wrinkles spread in a network of fine lines. He looked more like an
O’Donnell than a native of Ecuador.
It seemed odd to hear his courteous greeting in Spanish. Richard Cary
fumbled a few phrases in response. Don Miguel apologized and his smile
was engaging as he said in fluent English:
“I saw the Colombian flag on your steamer, my dear sir. But there is not
a man in all Colombia like you. You are—”
“I am Captain Cary of the _Valkyrie_, and this is the chief engineer,
Mr. Burnham.”
“An excursion for pleasure to Cocos Island?” observed Don Miguel,
watching them closely. “You are interested in my mining operations?
There is nothing to hide. I have been disappointed.”
“And you are going home soon, sir?”
“Perhaps. It may amuse me to stay and look at you. One of my men reports
that you sent an officer to the schooner. The second mate? A fat young
man with curly hair who chatters like a parrot.”
“Quite correct. That was Mr. Panchito,” replied Cary. “I wanted to find
out.”
“And you found out? My men asked some questions of your Mr. Panchito. He
was delighted to tell them. Señor Ramon Bazán has come to camp on Cocos
Island for his health?”
The manner was genial, but the voice conveyed a certain amusement,
ironical and patronizing. Thus might the wandering Ulysses, crafty and
vastly experienced, have addressed beguiling words to his own
simple-minded sailormen on some other desert island of a blue sea.
Young Charlie Burnham was nothing if not direct. He broke in to say:
“Quit your kidding. You know exactly what we came for, and we expect to
get it. Mr. Panchito is as leaky as a basket. I’ll bet he told your men
all he knew and then some. But there’s no harm done.”
“I will be frank with you, gentlemen,” cordially exclaimed Don Miguel
O’Donnell, who showed no resentment. “My own chart of this pirates’
treasure was made by the boatswain of Benito Bonito’s ship. The rascal
died in prison in Guayaquil. The chart was found by accident, a few
years ago, in a pile of old prison records and papers. As you say, Señor
Burnham, I knew exactly what I came for and I expected to get it. May
you have more success. My Cocos Island Exploration Company has wasted
its money.”
The visitors from the _Valkyrie_ eyed each other dubiously. If the chart
of Benito Bonito’s boatswain had failed to locate the treasure, what
about the chart of Captain Thompson of the brig _Mary Dear_? This was
poor news for Señor Ramon Bazán. They would say nothing about it.
“If you decide to stay longer, Don Miguel,” said Cary, “I see no reason
why we should get in each other’s way. We shall be digging a good many
rods from here.”
The adventurer from Ecuador had been shrewdly appraising the massive
candor of the Yankee shipmaster. Plausibly he suggested:
“Why not a partnership, Captain Cary? You have your own secret
information. I have the machinery, with more iron pipe in the hold of my
schooner if we need a longer line.”
“Señor Bazán will not agree to that,” said Cary, rather curtly. “He
prefers to go it alone.”
“Ah, old Ramon has a long memory and a short temper,” chuckled Don
Miguel O’Donnell. “I was a young man then, when he had an ambition to be
the president of Colombia. To some extent I helped his enemies. It hurt
him to spend money. He might have had my support, but no matter—I know
your Ramon Bazán, as it happens. If he comes to Cocos Island he bets on
a sure thing. But you will find it enormous labor, so much rock and
gravel have tumbled from the hill since the pirates buried the treasure
of Lima. My bargain is a good one, Captain Cary. I beg you to consider
it.”
“Señor Bazán wouldn’t trust you, sir,” frankly declared Cary. “His
dislikes are very violent.”
“Is it necessary to obey his orders?” suavely returned Don Miguel
O’Donnell. “Why not arrange this business without him? I include your
chief engineer, Mr. Burnham. He will be most useful. To let a greedy old
man expect most of this treasure for himself, to let him stand in the
way of a partnership with me, is absurd, Captain Cary. Your Colombian
sailors will soon be tired of digging in this gravel. Even a man like
you will fail unless you let me help you. You see my equipment. Think of
the money it has cost me.”
“Do you intend to take it with you?” asked Charlie Burnham.
“A bright young man,” smiled Don Miguel. “You can use it for yourself?
Wait a minute. What do you say, Captain Cary?”
“My owner will have no dealings with you, and that goes for his
officers,” was the brusque response. “I should say that he has you sized
up about right. You ask me to be disloyal to him, do you, to make a
private dicker and throw him over? Then how do I know you would be on
the level with me? Nothing doing. We play our own game and I warn you to
keep clear of it.”
“Most big, strong men are stupid,” amiably observed Don Miguel. “You
have no objections if I stay and guard my property?”
“Not as long as you leave ours alone,” declared Cary.
His voice had a deeper note. The blue eye had a frosty glint. Charlie
Burnham nudged him. It was time for them to put their heads together.
They bade Don Miguel O’Donnell good-day. He was affable, polite, and
apparently entertained by the crassness of youth. Until the arrival of
these ingenuous Americans, one could see that he had been bored to
extinction.
As they scrambled down to the dry ravine, Charlie Burnham remarked, with
some heat:
“One smooth guy, Captain Cary. He would double-cross his own
grandmother. What’s the answer? It don’t look much like waiting him out.
Shall we go ahead?”
“It looks that way, Charlie. I don’t know how many men he has. After we
begin work, is he liable to jump us? I can’t put our whole crew in camp.
It would be foolish to leave the steamer without protection.”
“Sure it would. And I mustn’t let the fires go dead. If it came on to
blow hard, we might have to steam out of the bay. And you’ll need an
anchor watch, of course.”
“Well, we can get organized by to-morrow. Now let’s see what we can do
with this next bearing, from the hump of the hill and along the ravine.”
They floundered through dense growth and over gullied ground until they
had traversed the estimated distance in rods. No attempt was made to
measure it accurately. This brought them to a lower rampart of cliff,
crumbled and rotten, in which bushes and creepers had found root. There
were wide fissures, as though an earthquake had shaken the limestone
formation. Richard Cary made a hasty calculation. There was no other
“face of cliff” nearby. They could not be very many rods from the spot.
Here was an agreeable camp site in a grove of cocoanut palms, with a
spring of clear water just beyond it.
“We shall have to make our own trail to the bay,” said Cary, “but it’s
not as rough as I expected. We don’t want to pack our stuff in over Don
Miguel’s road.”
“Leave him alone,” agreed Charlie Burnham. “I don’t feel neighborly.
He’ll have me sitting up nights.”
“Why, there would be no fun in it without him,” cheerfully protested
Richard Cary. “It would be a chore, like digging post-holes back on
those New Hampshire farms of ours. I didn’t dare expect anything as good
as this Don Miguel O’Donnell. This may turn out to be livelier than
Cartagena.”