HERE was small chance for conversation between the two friends had there been anything to say. Reaching the dock, the Japs closed about them in a body and hurried them southward along the beach, evidently heading for the camp on the rocky plateau.
On arriving there, they were led to a tent that was completely surrounded by armed guards. Here Takaro tightened their bonds, added others about their ankles so that they could barely hobble, and thrust them unceremoniously through the loose, canvas flap.
As he took in the interior with one swift glance, Darrell gave a low exclamation of surprise. The place was quite bare of furniture, and was lighted by a single lantern swinging from one of the poles. Stretched out on the bare rock, their arms extended at full length above their heads, and held there by taut ropes such as were also fastened to their feet, were two men: Philip Carmen and Roaring Billy Boote.
The latter was far from living up to his name and self-imposed reputation. He lay as if in a stupor. His face was drawn and haggard; the color of his skin was a mottled gray. Now and again he rolled his head from side to side and gave a low moan. His whole appearance was, in fact, that of a man half dead with terror.
Carmen's eyes were wide open; and at the entrance of the newcomers he raised his head with a painful effort, disclosing a face which held in it no trace of the languid, lazy expression it had worn aboard ship.
“You, too!” he muttered, with an effort at nonchalance which was not altogether a success. “Well, there's some slight comfort in having company, I suppose.”
“There generally is,” commented Darrell, with a smile. “So you found your Japs, after all.”
Carmen scowled. “Found them! They found us! Look here, Archer,” he went on, after a brief pause, “we're in a mighty tight place, and there's no sense in trying to keep up that bluff. I'm no more a secret-service agent than you are. I'm down here with that scum”—he jerked his head toward the moaning Boote—“after a lot of pearls he got track of, buried here forty years or more ago by some pirates. When I ran into you aboard ship, I thought you were stalking us, and gave you that song and dance about being a secret-service agent to throw you off the track. It was the biggest bull I ever made, for that rotten little Sudo must have heard us talking, and now his Jap friends won't believe a word I say, in spite of their finding the map and everything on me.”
“Too bad,” remarked Darrell. “It must be annoying to slip up at the very last moment. The pearls would have been easier money than helping the Mexican conspirators.”
There was a gasp of startled amazement from Carmen, and for a moment he lay staring dazedly up at Darrell.
“You know?” he muttered at length. “You knew all the time?”
“Quite so. You see, I happen to be a very good friend of the real Knowlton Darrell.”
Carmen's face showed the intense chagrin which filled his soul. “Fool! Blockhead!” he muttered. Then a puzzled look leaped into his eyes. “But this Darrell never saw me,” he exclaimed. “He busted up the scheme, I admit, and nabbed some of the boys just as we were ready to cross the border, but so far as I know he never set eyes on me.”
“He had a fairly accurate description of you,” Darrell explained, “which, I am bound to say, fits you rather better now than it did on the steamer. By the way,” he went on, with a faint touch of curiosity in his voice, “if you had any idea the Japs would be here, why under the sun did you take this time for coming?”
“Because I was a jackass, I suppose,” returned Carmen bitterly. “I heard about it from a pal of mine in Mexico City two weeks ago; but it was only a rumor, and I didn't believe it for a minute. Look here, Archer. Won't you help me out? Won't you tell this head Jap devil just what I am, and what I'm here for? It wont hurt you, and it may do me a lot of good.”
His tone was pleading, and the secret-service agent, after an instant's hesitation, shrugged his shoulders.
“Why, yes, I'll tell him, if I get the chance,” he agreed; “but I don't believe it will do much good. Whether you came for that purpose or not, you've discovered them here in possession. Unless I'm greatly mistaken, they don't mean to run any risk of that knowledge traveling very far from Magdalena Bay. Our genial pirate doesn't seem quite up to the mark,” he went on, as Boote gave a groan which shook his whole frame. “Is he sick or anything?”
Carmen's face darkened, and his eyes flashed scornfully. “Pirate—him?” he sneered. “The chicken-livered dub never saw the sea before except with his feet planted safely on dry land.”