Professor Ditson, show us, please, the map and ma.n.u.script with which you located Lake Eldorado."
For reply, the gaunt scientist produced from a pocket a small copper cylinder, from which he drew a roll of yellowed parchment. Half of it was covered with crabbed writing in the imperishable sepia ink which the old scriveners used. The other half was apparently blank. The lumber-king screwed his face up wisely over the writing.
"H"m-m," he remarked at last. "It"s some foreign language. Let one of these young fellers who"re going to college try."
Will took one look at the paper.
"I pa.s.s," he said simply; while Joe shook his head without even looking.
"You"re a fine lot of scholars!" scoffed Jud, as he received the scroll. "Listen now to Perfesser Adams of the University of Out-of-Doors."
Then, to the astonishment of everybody, in his high-pitched voice he began to translate the labored lines, reading haltingly, like a school-boy:
"I, Alvarado, companion of Pizarro, about to die at dawn, to my dear wife Oriana. I do repent me of my many sins. I am he who slew the Inca Atahualpa and many of his people, and who played away the Sun before sunrise. Now it comes that I too must die, nor of the wealth that I have won have I aught save the Secret of Eldorado. On a night of the full moon, I myself saw the Golden Man throw into the lake the great Emerald of the Incas and a wealth of gold and gems. This treasure-lake lies not far from Orcos in which was thrown the Chain. I have drawn a map in the way thou didst show me long years ago. Take it to the king. There be treasure enough there for all Spain; and through his justice, thou and our children shall have a share. Forgive me, Oriana, and forget me not.
Alvarado"
There was a silence when he had finished. It was as if the shadow of the tragedy of that wasted life and vain repentance had drifted down the centuries and hung over the little company who had listened to the reading of the undelivered letter. The stillness was broken by Mr.
Donegan.
"Where did you learn to read Spanish, you old rascal?" he inquired of Jud.
"Down among the Greasers in Mexico," chuckled the latter, delightedly.
"What does he mean by "playing away the Sun" and the "Chain"?" asked Will, of the scientist.
"When the treasures of the Incas were divided," explained Professor Ditson, precisely, "Alvarado had for his share a golden image of the sun over ten feet in diameter. This he gambled away in a single night. The Chain," continued Professor Ditson, "surrounded the chief Inca"s residence. It was made of gold, and was two hundred and thirty-three yards long. It was being carried by two hundred Indians to Cuzco to form part of the chief"s ransom--a room filled with gold as high as he could reach. When the gold came to his shoulder, he was killed. At the news of his death, the men who were bringing the Chain threw it into Lake Orcos."
"But--but," broke in the lumber-king, "where is the map? If you"ve got it with you, let"s have a look at it."
Without speaking, Professor Ditson reached over and took the match from the table. Lighting it, he held the flame for an instant close to the parchment. On the smooth surface before their eyes, suddenly appeared a series of vivid green lines, which at last took the form of a rude map.
"What he learned from Oriana," explained Professor Ditson, "was how to make and use invisible ink."
"Fellows," broke in Mr. Donegan, earnestly, "I believe that Professor Ditson has found Eldorado, and I"m willing to go the limit to get one of the emeralds of the Incas. I"ll finance the expedition if you"ll all go.
What do you say?"
"Aye," voted Will.
"Aye," grunted Joe.
"I a.s.sent," said Professor Ditson, with his usual preciseness.
Jud alone said nothing.
"How about it, Jud?" inquired Big Jim.
"Well," returned Jud, doubtfully, "who"s goin" to lead this expedition?"
"Why, the professor here," returned the lumber-king, surprised. "He"s the only one who knows the way."
"That"s it," objected Jud. "It"s likely to be a rough trip, an"
treasure-huntin" is always dangerous. Has the perfesser enough pep to keep up with us younger men?"
Professor Ditson smiled bleakly.
"I"ve been six times across South America, and once lived among the South American Indians for two years without seeing a white man," he remarked acidly. "Perhaps I can manage to keep up with an old man and two boys who have never been in the country before. You should understand," he went on, regarding the old trapper sternly, "that specialization in scientific investigation does not necessarily connote lack of physical ability."
Jud gasped. "I don"t know what he means," he returned angrily, "but he"s wrong--specially that part about me bein" old."
"I feel it is my duty to warn you," interrupted Professor Ditson, "that this trip may involve a special danger outside of those usual to the tropics. When I was last in Peru," he went on, "I had in my employ a man named Slaughter. He was an expert woodsman, but sinister in character and appearance and with great influence over the worst element among the Indians. One night I found him reading this ma.n.u.script, which he had taken from my tent while I was asleep. I persuaded him to give it up and leave my employ."
"How did you persuade him?" queried Jud, curiously.
"Automatically," responded Professor Ditson. "At least, I used a Colt"s automatic," he explained. "His language, as he left, was deplorable,"
continued the scientist, "and he declared, among other things, that I would have him to reckon with if I ever went again to Eldorado. I have no doubt that through his Indian allies he will be advised of the expedition when it reaches Peru and make trouble for us."
"What did he look like?" inquired Mr. Donegan.
"He was a giant," replied Professor Ditson, "and must have been over seven feet in height. His eyebrows made a straight line across his forehead, and he had a scar from his right eye to the corner of his jaw."
"Scar Dawson!" shouted Will.
"You don"t mean the one who nearly burned you and Joe alive in the cabin?" said the lumber-king, incredulously.
"It must be," said Will. "No other man would have that scar and height.
I"ll say "some danger" is right," he concluded, while Joe nodded his head somberly.
"That settles it!" said Jud. "It"s evident this expedition needs a good man to keep these kids out of trouble. I"m on."
CHAPTER II
A NEW WORLD
A week later found the whole party aboard of one of the great South American liners bound for Belem. The voyage across was uneventful except for the constant bickerings between Jud and Professor Ditson, in which Will and Joe acted sometimes as peace-makers and sometimes as pace-makers. Then, one morning, Will woke up to find that the ocean had changed overnight from a warm sap-green to a muddy clay-color. Although they were not within sight of land, the vast river had swept enough earth from the southern continent into the ocean to change the color of the water for a hundred miles out at sea. Just at sunrise the next day the steamer glided up the Amazon on its way to the old city of Belem, seventy miles inland.
"The air smells like a hot, mouldy cellar!" grumbled Jud; and soon the Cornwall pilgrims began to glimpse things strange and new to all three of them. Groups of slim a.s.sai-palms showed their feathery foliage; slender lianas hung like green snakes from the trees; and everywhere were pineapple plants, bread-fruit trees, mangos, blossoming oranges and lemons, rows of enormous silk-cotton trees, and superb banana plants, with glossy, velvety green leaves twelve feet in length curving over the roof of nearly every house. Beyond the city the boys had a sight of the jungle, which almost without a break covers the greater part of the Amazon basin, the largest river-basin on earth. They landed just before sunset, and, under Professor Ditson"s direction, a retinue of porters carried their luggage to the professor"s house, far down the beach, the starting-point for many of his South American expeditions.
As the sun set, the sudden dark of the tropics dropped down upon them, with none of the twilight of higher lat.i.tudes. Jud grumbled at the novelty.
"This ain"t no way to do," he complained to Professor Ditson. "The sun no more than goes down, when bang! it"s as black as your hat."
"We"ll have that seen to at once," responded the professor, sarcastically. "In the meantime, be as patient as you can."
With the coming of the dark, a deafening din began. Frogs and toads croaked, drummed, brayed, and roared. Locusts whirred, and a vast variety of crickets and gra.s.shoppers added their shrill note to the uproar, so strange to visitors and so unnoticed by natives in the tropics.