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But the point, as far as we are concerned in this case, is that there is still believed to be the great fish, which no one has found. Who knows? Perhaps, somehow, Mendoza had the secret of the peje grande?" Kennedy paused, and I could feel the tense interest with which his delving into the crumbling past had now endowed this already fascinating case. "And the curse?" I put in.
Perhaps we may as well sit out here in the corridor until she comes." It was evidently his desire to see how Whitney and Inez would act, for this was the first time we had ever seen them together. "We were talking of the treasure," resumed Whitney, omitting to mention the dagger. "Kennedy, we are not the only ones who have sought the peje grande, or rather are seeking it.
"I've been looking up that hint that the Senorita dropped when she used those words peje grande, which mean, literally, 'big fish," he resumed. "Walter, it fires the imagination. You have read of the wealth that Pizarro found in Peru, of course." Visions of Prescott flashed through my mind as he spoke. "Well, where are the gold and silver of the conquistadores?
Somehow the Inca dagger seems to have been mixed up with them." "Yes with the peje grande, I believe," went on Whitney. Beneath his exterior of studied calm I could see that he was very much excited. If I had not already noted a peculiar physical condition in him, I might have thought he had stopped in the cafe with some friends too long.
She stopped short, seeming to enjoy the surprised look on our faces at finding that she was willing to discuss the matter so intimately. "After the Indian had shown the Spaniard the treasure in the mound," she pursued, "the Indian told the Spaniard that he had given him only the little fish, the peje chica, but that some day he would give him the big fish, the peje grande.
Gone to the melting-pot, centuries ago. But is there none left? The Indians in Peru believe so, at any rate. And, Walter, there are persons who would stop at nothing to get at the secret. "It is a matter of history that soon after the conquest a vast fortune was unearthed of which the King of Spain's fifth amounted to five million dollars. That treasure was known as the peje chica the little fish.
More than that, I could well imagine how any one possessed of an imagination susceptible to the influence of mystery and tradition would succumb to the glittering charm of the magic words, peje chica, and feel all the gold- hunter's enthusiasm when Whitney brought him into the atmosphere of the peje grande. As he talked, visions of hidden treasure seemed to throw a glamour over everything.
I see that you already know at least a part of the story, anyhow." "Yes," admitted Kennedy, "I do know something of it. But I should rather get it more accurately from your lips than from the hearsay of any one else." She smiled quietly to herself. "I don't believe," she added, "that you know that the peje grande was not ordinary treasure. It was the temple gold.
"There has been nothing but murder and robbery from the time that the peje chica was discovered," asserted the young man sadly. "You are quite right." "Truly it would seem to have been cursed," added Craig. "The spirit of Mansiche must, indeed, watch over it. I suppose you know of the loss of the old Inca dagger from the University Museum and that it was that with which Don Luis was murdered?"
In the night hours passed before his grandfather's little ships, Ulysses used to hear the Triton speak of the Peje Nicolao, a man-fish of the Straits of Messina mentioned by Cervantes and other authors, who lived in the water maintaining himself by the donations from the ships. His uncle must be some relative of this Peje Nicolao.
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