We could not understand this sudden departure, except on the possible ground that Yank, realizing that now the party must split forces, had decided to seek new companions among those lucky enough to sail on the first steamer.

“Even then he needn’t have been in such a hurry,” complained Johnny a trifle bitterly. “And he needn’t have thought we’d be in his way.”

“Has he paid his share of the lodgings?” it occurred to me to ask.

We felt quite bitter against Yank, and we carefully avoided his usual haunts, for we did not want to meet him. Then we began to think it strange we had not run across him somewhere on the streets. Then we began to look for him. We found that Yank had disappeared!

At that, a little alarmed, we set ourselves to a serious search and inquiry. A few remembered to have seen him, but were vague as to when and where. The authorities moved sluggishly, and with little enthusiasm. Men were dying every day; and disappearing underground, leaving no trace of themselves behind. One more or less seemed unimportant.

In the meanwhile we spent much of our time by the shore, together with a comfortable majority of our fellow argonauts, 77 awaiting the sighting of a vessel. We had engaged, and paid daily, a boatman to be in readiness to take us off; and we settled our lodgings account a week ahead.

“There’s going to be a scramble for that blessed ship,” said Talbot; “and we’ll just be prepared.”

To that end we also kept our effects packed and ready for instant removal.

The beach was not a bad place. It ran out the peninsula in a long gentle curve; and the surges broke snow white on yellow sands. Across deep blue water was an island; and back of us palm trees whipped in the trade winds. We sat under them, and yarned and played cards and smoked. In bad weather–and it rained pretty often–we huddled in smoky little huts; those of us who could get in. The rest tried to stick it out; or returned with rather a relieved air to the town.

The expected ship came, of course, on one of these dull gray days; and those who had thought themselves unlucky in being crowded out of the huts were the first to sight her. They sneaked down very quietly and tried to launch two of the boats. Of course the native boatmen were all inside; trust them! As a high surf was running, and as none of the men were in any sense good boatmen, they promptly broached to and filled. The noise brought us to the door.

Then there was a fine row. One of the two boats commandeered by the early birds happened to be ours! All our forethought seemed to have been in vain. The bedraggled and crestfallen men were just wading ashore when we descended upon them. Talbot was like a raving lunatic.

“You hounds!” he roared. “Don’t you dare try to 78 sneak off! You catch hold here and help empty these boats! You would, would you?” He caught one escaping worthy by the collar and jerked him so rapidly backward that his heels fairly cracked together. Johnny flew to combat with a chuckle of joy. I contented myself by knocking two of them together until they promised to be good. The four we had collared were very meek. We all waded into the wash where the boat lay sluggishly rolling. It is no easy matter to empty a boat in that condition. Water weighs a great deal; is fearfully inert, or at least feels so; and has a bad habit of promptly slopping in again. We tugged and heaved, and rolled and hauled until our joints cracked; but at last we got her free.

In the meantime forty other boats had been launched and were flying over the waves halfway between the shore and the ship.

Talbot was swearing steadily and with accuracy; Johnny was working like a crazy man; I was heaving away at the stern and keeping an eye on our involuntary helpers. The boatman, beside himself with frantic excitement, jabbered and ran about and screamed directions that no one understood. About all we were accomplishing now was the keeping of that boat’s head straight against the heavy wash.

It seemed as though we tugged thus at cross purposes for an hour. In reality it was probably not over two or three minutes. Then Talbot regained sufficient control to listen to the boatman. At once he calmed down.

“Here, boys,” said he, “ease her backward. You, Johnny, stand by at the bow and hold her head on. Frank and I will give her a shove at the stern. When the time 79 comes, I’ll yell and you pile right in, Johnny. Vamos, Manuel!”

We took our places; the boatman at the oars, his eyes over his shoulder watching keenly the in-racing seas.

The four dripping culprits looked at each other uncertainly, and one of them started to climb in the boat.

“Well, for God’s sake!” screeched Talbot, and made a headlong bull rush for the man.

The latter tumbled right out of the boat on his back in the shallow water. His three companions fled incontinently up the beach, where he followed them as soon as he could scramble to his feet.

Manuel said something sharply, without looking around.

“Shove!” screeched Talbot. “Pile in, Johnny!”

We bent our backs, The boat resisted, yielded, gathered headway. It seemed to be slipping away from me down a steep hill.

“Jump in!” yelled Talbot.

I gave a mighty heave and fell over the stern into the bottom of the boat. Waters seemed to be crashing by; but by the time I had gathered myself together and risen to my knees, we were outside the line of breakers, and dancing like a gull over the smooth broad surges.

Ships could anchor no nearer than about a mile and a half offshore. By the time we had reached the craft she was surrounded by little boats bobbing and rubbing against her sides. She proved to be one of that very tubby, bluff-bowed type then so commonly in use as whalers and freighters. The decks swarmed black with an excited crowd.

80We rowed slowly around her. We were wet, and beginning to chill. No way seemed to offer by which we could reach her decks save by difficult clambering, for the gang ladder was surrounded ten deep by empty boats. A profound discouragement succeeded the excitement under which we had made our effort.

“To hell with her!” snarled Johnny, “There’s no sense going aboard her. There’s enough on deck now to fill her three times over. Let’s get back where it’s warm.”

“If I run across any of those fellows in town I’ll break their necks!” said I.

“What makes me mad-” continued Johnny.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake shut up!” cried Talbot.

If he had been a little less cold and miserable we probably would have quarrelled. As it was, we merely humped over, and motioned the astonished Manuel to return to the shore. Our boat’s head turned, we dropped down under the bow of the ship. In order to avoid the sweep of the seas Manuel held us as closely as possible under the bowsprit. We heard a hail above us. Looking up we saw Yank bending over the rail.

We stared at him, our mouths open, so astonished that for a moment we did not even think to check the boat. Then we came back in a clumsy circle. Yank yelled at us; and we yelled back at him; but so great was the crash of waters and the whistling of wind that we could make out nothing. Then Yank motioning us to remain where we were, disappeared, to return after a short interval, with a speaking trumpet.

“Have you got your baggage with you?” he roared.

81We shook our heads and waved our arms.

“Go get it!” he ordered.

We screamed something back at him.

“Go get it!” he repeated; and withdrew his head entirely.

We rowed back to town; it was no longer necessary to return to the exposed beach where we had waited to sight the ships. Johnny and I indulged in much excited speculation, but Talbot refused to show curiosity.

“He’s there, and he’s evidently engaged us passage; and he wants us aboard to claim it,” said he, “and that’s all we can know now; and that’s enough for me.”

On our way we met a whole fleet of boats racing their belated way from town. We grinned sardonically over the plight of these worthies. A half-hour sufficed us to change our clothes, collect our effects, and return to the water front. On the return journey we crossed the same fleet of boats inward bound. Their occupants looked generally very depressed.

Yank met us at the top of the gangway, and assisted us in getting our baggage aboard. Johnny and I peppered him with questions, to which he vouchsafed no answer. When we had paid off the boatman, he led the way down a hatch into a very dark hole near the bows. A dim lantern swayed to and fro, through the murk we could make out a dozen bunks.

“They call this the fo’cas’le,” said Yank placidly. “Crew sleeps here. This is our happy home. Everything else full up. We four,” said he, with a little flash of triumph, “are just about the only galoots of the whole b’iling at Panama that gets passage. She’s loaded to the 82 muzzle with men that’s come away around the Horn in her; and the only reason she stopped in here at all is to get a new thing-um-a-jig of some sort that she had lost or busted or something.”

“Well, I don’t like my happy home while she wobbles so,” said Johnny. “I’m going to be seasick, as usual. But for heaven’s sake, Yank, tell us where you came from, and all about it. And make it brief, for I’m going to be seasick pretty soon.”

He lay down in one of the bunks and closed his eyes.

“You’d much better come up on deck into the fresh air,” said Talbot.

“Fire ahead, Yank! Please!” begged Johnny.

“Well,” said Yank, “when I drew that steamer ticket, it struck me that somebody might want it a lot more than I did, especially as you fellows drew blank. So I hunted up a man who was in a hurry, and sold it to him for five hundred dollars. Then I hired one of these sail-rigged fishing boats and laid in grub for a week and went cruising out to sea five or six miles.”

Johnny opened one eye.

“Why?” he demanded feebly.

“I was figgerin’ on meeting any old ship that came along a little before the crowd got at her,” said Yank. “And judgin’ by the gang’s remarks that just left, I should think I’d figgered just right.”

“You bet you did,” put in Talbot emphatically.

“It must have been mighty uncomfortable cruising out there in that little boat so long,” said I. “I wonder the men would stick.”

83“I paid them and they had to,” said Yank grimly.

“Why didn’t you let us in on it?” I asked.

“What for? It was only a one-man job. So then I struck this ship, and got aboard her after a little trouble persuading her to stop. There wasn’t no way of making that captain believe we’d sleep anywheres we could except cash; so I had to pay him a good deal.”

“How much?” demanded Talbot.

“It came to two hundred apiece. I’m sorry.”

“Glory be!” shouted Talbot, “we’re ahead of the game. Yank, you long-headed old pirate, let me shake you by the hand!”

“I wish you fellows would go away,” begged Johnny.

We went on deck. The dusk was falling, and the wind with it; and to westward an untold wealth of gold was piling up. Our ship rolled at her anchor, awaiting the return of those of her people who had gone ashore. On the beach tiny spots of lights twinkled where some one had built fires. A warmth was stealing out from the shore over the troubled waters. Talbot leaned on the rail by my side. Suddenly he chuckled explosively.

“I was just thinking,” said he in explanation, “of us damfools roosting on that beach in the rain.”

Thus at last we escaped from the Isthmus. At the end of twenty-four hours we had left the island of Tobago astern, and were reaching to the north.

PART II

THE GOLDEN CITY