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However this may be, the news of Professor Braddock's good fortune shortly came to Don Pedro's ears through the medium of the landlady. As she revealed what she had heard in the morning, the Peruvian gentleman was spared a sleepless night. But as soon as he learned the truth which was surprising enough in its unexpectedness he hastily finished his breakfast and hurried to the Pyramids.
Two months before, a native from far back in the forest had brought me a fine live ape. I could not keep him alive, that is not after I left the island, and I wanted his skin and skeleton for the museum, but I hated to mar the beauty of the specimen by a wound. That night with Pedro's help I put him quietly out of the way, with the help of the chloroform.
His account was corroborated, in the very minutest points, by the men who had accompanied him, even though cross-questioned with unusual particularity by Father Francis. Old Pedro's statement, though less circumstantial, was, to the soldiers and citizens especially, quite as convincing.
The homicide of the familiar of the Inquisition fully accounted for Pedro's not returning to Spain; while as that country had been for so many years at war with England, he might have found it impossible to send him back to Shetland. He might have written, to be sure, but the letters might have miscarried. Nothing was more probable. It was too likely, however, that both he and the boy were lost.
Someone might be making a hurried and disgusted exit from Pedro's. He looked quietly around him. After his immersion in the thick darkness of the house, the outer night seemed clear and the stars burned low through the thin mountain air. Denver's face was black under the shadow of his hat. "How are you, kid shaky?" he whispered. Shaky? It surprised Terry to feel that he had forgotten about fear.
The remains of some pieces of charred wood lay on the floor where the fire was usually kindled, and, to Pedro's great satisfaction, they found a small pile of firewood which had been left there by the last travellers. "A dismal enough place," remarked Lawrence, looking round after shaking and stamping the snow out of his garments. "You have reason to thank God, senhor, that we have reached it."
Now the robbers knew that they had been robbed by some one else, and so, when Pedro's body was taken away, the captain went to town to see who had buried the body, and by inquiring, found that Juan had become suddenly rich, and also that it was his brother who had been buried. So the captain of the robbers went to Juan's house, where he found a ball going on.
To make up for the day before, the whole gang took life very easily, and knocked off work rather earlier than usual. They had loafed ten or fifteen minutes in the bunk-house and were straggling up the slope in answer to Pedro's summons to dinner when, with a clatter of hoofs, the blacks whirled through the further gate and galloped toward the house.
"Now, men," he whispered excitedly to his delighted crew, "we will run down and attend to the only other ship of theirs which is of any use the Union. Hard over with your helm, quartermaster, and we will get down the harbour again." The wheel spun round in Pedro's sinewy grasp, and the Janequeo's nose was presently pointing down the harbour.
He carried flowers to Pedro's hut; he did many chores for Pedro's wife; he went out into the woods and killed the plumpest birds he could find and cooked them himself for Pedro's daughter. Presently he began to assert a more or less proprietary interest in the family.
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