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Stepping to a rack he took from it a tube filled with an opaque liquid. He stepped to the doorway to hold it up to the fading light in order to ascertain what changes had taken place in its contents since the morning.
He almost dropped it, iron-nerved man as he was, as a piercing shriek from the barracks inhabited by the plantation workers rent the evening hush of the plantation.
The noise grew louder and louder. It seemed that a hundred voices took up the cry. It grew nearer and as it did so resolved itself into its component parts of womens shrill cries and the deep gruff exclamations of men much worked up.
Suddenly a man burst out of the dense banana growth that grew almost up to Señor Chesters laboratory. He was a wild and terrifying figure. His broad brimmed straw hat was bloodied and through the crown a bullet had torn its way. A black ribbon, on which was roughly chalked Viva Estrada! hung in a grotesque loop at the side of his face.
His clothes, a queer attempt at regimentals consisting of white duck trousers and an old band-masters coat, hung in ribbons revealing his limbs, scratched and torn by his flight through the jungle. He had no rifle, but carried an old machete with which he had hacked his way home through the dense bush paths.
The master of La Merced recognized him at once as Juan Batista, a neer-do-weel stable hand, who had deserted his wife and three children two weeks before for the patriotic purpose of joining Estradas army, and incidentally enriching himself by loot. He had attached himself to General Ruizs division.
Well, Juan! Speak up! What is it? demanded his master sharply. Juan groveled in the dust. He mumbled in Spanish and a queer jargon of his own; thought by him to be correct English.
Get back there! shouted Señor Chester to the crowd of wailing women and scared natives from the quarters that pressed around. They fell back obediently.
What is all this, Blakely? asked Chester impatiently, as Jimmie Blakely, the young English overseer, strolled up as unruffled as if he had been playing tennis.
Scat! said Jimmie waving his arm at the crowd and then, adjusting his eyeglass, he remarked:
It seems that Estradas chaps have had a jolly good licking.
What! exclaimed the planter, this is serious. Speak up, Juan, at once. Where is General Ruiz?
It was with a sinking heart that Chester heard the answer as the thought what the news would mean to the radiant beauty he had been talking with but a short time before, flashed across his mind.
Muerto! muerto! wailed the prostrate Juan, dead! dead!
At this, although they didnt understand it, the women set up a great howl of terror.
Oh Zelaya is coming! He will kill us and eat our babies! Oh master save us dont let Zelayas men eat our babies.
The men blubbered and cried as much as the women, but from a different and more selfish reason.
Oh, they will kill us too and spoil all our land. The land we have grown with so much care, they bemoaned in piercing tones, moreover, we shall be forced to join the army and be killed in battle.
Blakely, for heavens sake take that bit of glass out of your eye, and get this howling mob out of here! besought Chester desperately. If you dont Ill kill some of them myself. Here you, get up, he exclaimed bestowing a most unmerciful kick on the still prostrate Juan. Oh, for a few Americans or Englishmen, he added, out of deference to Blakely.
Couldnt do a thing with them without the eyeglass, Mr. Chester, drawled the imperturbable Blakely, they think its witchcraft. Dont twig how the dickens I keep it in.
All right, all right, meet me here at the house and we must hold a council of war, as soon as youve got them herded safe in the barracks, impatiently said Chester, turning on his heel.
Now come on, you gibbering idiots, shouted the consolatory Briton at his band of weeping men and women, come on now get out of here, or Ill eat your blooming babies myself my word I will, and the amiable Jimmie put on such a terrifying expression that his charges fled before him too terrified to make any more noise.
Out of sight of the governor, however, the Hon. Jimmies careless manner dropped.
Well, this is a jolly go and no mistake; he muttered, giving the groveling Juan a kick, where it would do the most good, well, Jimmie my boy youve always been looking for a bit of row and it looks as if youd jolly well put your foot in it this time eh, what?
While all this transpired on the ranchero El Merced, the Aztec with our heroes on board surprised everybody in Greytown, and no one more than her captain, by arriving there ahead of time. Just about the time that the Hon. Jimmie was herding his weeping charges to the barracks, her mud-hook rattled down and she swung at anchor off the first really tropical town on which the Boy Aviators eyes had ever rested.
CHAPTER III.
BILLY BARNES OF THE PLANET
Before sun up the next day there was a busy scene of bustling activity at the plantation of La Merced. The bustle extended from the hacienda to the barracks, the news of the arrival of the Aztec having been brought to the estancia the night before by a native runner.
Old Matula, Señor Chesters personal mocho had been down at the stables since the time that the stars began to fade urging the men, whose duty it was to look after the horses, to greater activity in saddling up the mounts, which his master, Jimmie Blakely, and their cortege needed in their ride to the coast to meet the boys.
The native plantation hands, as volatile as most of their race had forgotten the events of the preceding night in their child-like excitement at the idea of the arrival of The Big Man Bird, as they called the Golden Eagle; this being their conception of the craft gained after numerous consultations of Señor Chester.
Even Juan was strutting around the quarters and posing as a wounded hero, to the great admiration of his wife and the other women who entirely forgot that the night before he had appeared anything but a man of arms, and that his wife had subsisted mainly on the Señor Chesters charity, since his desertion of her to become a patriot.
Jimmie Blakely and Señor Chester had sat far into the night talking over the situation, and it had struck midnight before they arrived at the conclusion that it would be inflicting a needless shock to inform Señora Ruiz of Juans report of her husbands death until some sort of confirmation had been obtained. Fate, however, took the painful task out of their hands. The gossipy servants who had heard Joses lamentations lost no time in conveying the news to the estancia of Señor Pachecho. Señora Ruiz received the report of her husbands death bravely enough while the servants were in the room, but after they had left she fell in a swoon and speedily became so ill that the old doctor at Restigue had to be routed out of bed and driven at post haste in a rickety volante to Don Pachechos home.
After a hasty snack a la Espagnole the real breakfast in the tropics not being taken till eleven oclock or so the master of La Merced and Blakely mounted their horses and set out at top speed for Greytown.
Ive got my own ideas of welcoming the boys to Nicaragua, confided Mr. Chester to his overseer as they put spurs to their mounts, I ordered a bonga to be in readiness for us as soon as the Aztec arrived. I guess a trip through the surf in one of those will astonish them, eh?