himself within the white walls of that ancient and mysterious castle, which had a few hours before loomed so wonderfully out of the night.

CHAPTER II
AN UNDERGROUND SEA

Pant sat in a kitchen so broad and long that it reminded him of a picture he had seen in an illustrated copy of Ivanhoe. The table, on which rested his steaming cup of home grown, home roasted coffee, was a massive hand-hewn affair. On the top, a single slab of mahogany six feet wide and four inches thick, axe marks were yet to be seen.

As his glance took in the room his heart swelled with admiration. There was no stove. A great fireplace was there in its stead. Pots and pans of iron, and of copper and black tin, hung from the rafters.

“Like Longfellow’s ancient home,” he told himself. “Only this is to-day. The last of the Dons!” he repeated in a tone of reverence.

One thing puzzled him. Every article in the room, save two, belonged to yesterday—a purple coat hanging in a corner and a boy’s cap beside it—were distinctly of to-day and American made.

“They can’t belong to the young girl,” he told himself. “Nor to her grandmother.”

The bent and aged woman who must be the young Spanish girl’s grandmother was at that moment offering him his second cup of coffee.

His thoughts were cut short by the answer to his problem. A tall, fair-haired American boy, apparently in his early teens, parted the heavy homespun curtains at the back of the room and started towards the table.

Seeing Pant, he halted in surprise.

“Pardon me,” said Pant, springing to his feet. “Perhaps I intrude. I had supposed that this house belonged to these good Spanish people. Apparently it is your home instead.”

“No.” The strange boy’s smile was frank, disarming. “You were right the first time. Like you, I am an intruder. But you are from America,” he added quickly. “How perfectly grand! Won’t you please stay for a second cup, and to talk to me a little of our homeland?”

Pant stayed. They ended by talking little of the homeland. In their strange surroundings they found a fascinating subject of conversation.

“Yes,” said the boy at last, who gave his name as Kirk Munson, “they are truly the last of the Dons. Once a rich and noble family.

“And do you know”—his lips moved close, he spoke almost in a whisper, “there is a tale, perhaps only a legend, a story of a beaten silver box filled with priceless pearls taken from the Pacific when that great ocean was young. The silver box, so the story goes, was hidden away by the first Don of this family to keep it from the buccaneers, hidden and lost from sight of human eyes, perhaps forever.

“There are all sorts of caves and things like that about here,” he went on. “It’s all very mysterious and—and sort of bewitching.”

“Caves?” said Pant, awaking to his most urgent need. “Are they near? Do you suppose they are quite dark?”

“I am told,” Kirk’s voice was low again, “that there is a very great one not four miles back in the bush, and dark. It is said you are no more than inside it before you are fairly immersed in darkness.”

“The very place!” exclaimed Pant. “I must go there at once.”

“Must you?” Kirk’s voice was full of surprise.

This changed at once to entreaty. “Won’t you please let me go along? No one who lives here will take me. I have a servant, a huge Carib, a very giant of a man who will be our bodyguard.”

“That’s all right,” said Pant, rising. “Be glad for the company. But why do those who live here refuse to enter the cave?”

“Haunted.” The other boy’s tone was impressive. “They say the cave is haunted by the ghosts of more than a thousand Maya Indians who are supposed to have fled there from their enemies and to have perished centuries ago.”

“One wouldn’t care to come upon their bones in such a place.”

Kirk shuddered.

“Nevertheless, shall we go?” said Pant.

Kirk nodded.

“All right. We had better go up in the cool of late afternoon. The jungle air will not be so oppressive. We can return by the light of the moon.”

Late that afternoon, after a day of rest, Pant found himself on the broad veranda of the house. Here he unbound his pack. From it he took three light fibre trays, a package of powders, two flashlights, extra batteries for the lights, and his small black box. All these, together with a quantity of matches, he bound carefully in waterproof oiled cloth. He was then ready for the journey to the cave.

As he sat for a time, waiting for his new found friend, his mind was rife with speculations. How had this strange American boy come here so far from the seaboard? How did he come to be in Central America at all?

The Spanish people were strange, too. He had heard of them, the last of the Dons. Fragments of their history had drifted to him from afar. They were the direct descendants of a proud Spanish family. Two centuries before the family had grown immensely rich, so the story ran. How had they come by their wealth? Where had it gone? These were questions no one seemed prepared to answer. Enough. They were rich no longer. For all that, they appeared to live very comfortably off the land.

“So there is a story, probably only a legend, telling of a box of beaten silver filled with pearls,” he thought. “I must know more of that.”

He found himself far more interested in the story of that large band of Maya Indians who had perished in the cave. “The thing must have happened long ago,” he told himself.

“They did not enter the cave empty handed. When people flee they take some treasures with them. Should one come upon their bones he would be sure to find priceless curios there, beaten gold, hand cut stones and copper knives of long ago.”

Yes, he was interested in this a little, but most of all he was concerned with his own business within some dark corner of the cave.

“Wish he’d come,” he thought impatiently, “wish—”

At that moment the hugest black man he had ever seen, bearing in one hand a rifle that was a veritable cannon and in the other a basket, rounded the corner of the house. He was closely followed by the American boy.

In a loose flannel blouse, corduroy knickers and high stout boots, Kirk looked quite fit and capable.

“Ready for any adventure,” was Pant’s mental comment.

“I hope I didn’t tire you waiting,” Kirk smiled at him. “The Spanish mother put up a bit of lunch for us—casaba bread, home made cheese, butter and wild honey. She insisted; so did Ramoncita. They are dears.”

“Real sports, I’d say,” Pant assented heartily. He could scarcely remember a time when the very mention of such strange and tasty food did not whet his appetite.

“Ramoncita?” he said after a moment. “Is that the girl with round cheeks and big dark eyes?”

“Yes. Ramoncita Salazar. Musical name, isn’t it? The real Spanish people of the highest class are wonderfully attune to all things artistic and beautiful. But we must be off. This black man will go along to help carry our stuff.”

The trail they followed was steep and rocky. It was not much of a trail. In places the bushes hung over it so thick and low that they were obliged to all but creep on hands and knees; again it was so smooth and steep that only by clinging to low growing shrubs could they go forward.