Their way led by the hotel where the boys stood gazing with amusement and some pity at their first sight of a Central American army on the march. Some of the troopers were not much bigger than the newsboys they had left behind in the New York that now seemed so far away. These little fellows tottered along under the weight of haversacks and heavy Remington rifles, keeping step as best they could with their elders. Several of the soldiers carried gamecocks under their arms and others had guitars and mandolins slung over their shoulders; one man even carried a bird in a wooden cage.
Rogero’s face bore a deep scowl as he rode by surrounded by his excited staff officers. His eyes were downcast but he raised them as he passed the little group in front of the Grand Central. There was a sinister gleam in them like that in the leaden orbs of a venomous serpent.
“Adios, señors,” he sneered, leaning back in his saddle, “we shall meet again and I shall have the pleasure, I hope, of introducing some of you to our Nicaraguan prisons.”
CHAPTER VI.
FRANK TO THE RESCUE
Wagons for the transportation of the packing cases containing the Golden Eagle, and for the boys’ baggage had been secured by old Matula earlier in the day and when the Chester party arrived at the wharf, late in the afternoon, he had made such an impression on the native workers by his imperious commands and promises of extra money from the Señor Chester for fast work, that they found everything in readiness for the journey back to the plantation. The boys were delighted with their ponies, spirited little animals as quick as cats on their feet and able to travel over the rough mountain roads like goats.
The wagon was drawn by a team of bullocks hitched to the pole by a heavy yoke of wood, with the rough marks of the axe still upon it.
“Well, we really are in a foreign country at last,” exclaimed Harry as his eyes fell on the primitive-looking wagon and its queer motive power.
In spite of old Matula’s by turns imploring, threatening and wheedling persuasions it was almost dark when the expedition was ready to make a start for the plantation. There was a full moon, however, and the moonlight of the tropics in the dry season is a very different thing to the pallid illumination of the northern Luna. As the Chester party, headed by the boys on their ponies, wound through the streets of Greytown and began the long steady climb to La Merced, a radiance like electric light flooded the way and showed them every twig and leaf as clearly as if it had been day. Everywhere, too, the darker shadows were spangled with brilliant fireflies.
They reached the plantation about midnight and found that the servants had made everything ready for their reception. The boys were delighted with the picturesque reception the hands gave them. Every man, woman and child had a torch and the sight of these flickering about in the moonlight long before they reached their destination resembled a convention of huge lightning-bugs.
Inside the main sala there was a tempting meal in the native style laid out. There was huge grapefruit and custard apples, a fruit filled with real custard, crisp bread-fruit roasted to a turn, fragrant frijoles, the national dish of the Latin-American from Mexico to Patagonia, and several kinds of meat and salted fish all cooked in the best style of old Matula’s wife, who waited on them.
“Well, this beats Delmonico’s,” remarked Billy, who at Mr. Chester’s hearty invitation had made one of the party. “I always had an idea that you people down here lived like savages,” he laughed, “but here you are with a layout that you couldn’t beat anywhere from New York to the coast.”
Billy’s simple-hearted admiration of everything he had encountered on the estancia caused Mr. Chester much amusement. Billy proved his appreciation of everything by sampling all the dishes in turn including a dish of red peppers that caused his temporary retirement in agony.
“Jimminy crickets, I felt as if I had a three alarm fire in my department of the interior,” was the way he explained his feelings after he had swallowed a gallon of water, more or less, to alleviate his sufferings.
After their exciting day the boys slept like tops, although their dreams were a wild rehash of the novel experiences they had gone through. Frank dreamed that Rogero in an airship fashioned like a bonga was pursuing them through space and that although they speeded up the Golden Eagle to her fastest flight, the evil-faced Nicaraguan gained on them rapidly. He had just run the prow of his queer air-craft into the Golden Eagle’s stern and Frank felt himself falling, falling down into a huge sort of lake of boiling surf when he awoke to find it was broad daylight, and the cheerful daily routine of the plantation going busily on as if the events of the day before had been as unreal as his dream. Springing out of bed, Frank aroused Harry. The younger boy had just about rubbed the sleep out of his eyes when their father came into the room.
“Come on boys,” he said, “and I’ll show you how we take our morning bath down here.”
The boys slipped on bath-robes and thrust their feet into slippers. When they were ready Mr. Chester led them out to a small building with latticed sides a short distance from the house. Inside was a cement-lined pool about twenty feet in length by fifteen in width with a depth that varied from five feet at one end to seven at the other. It was full of sparkling water that ran into it from a mountain stream on one side, and was piped back into the bed of the brook, again after it had flowed through Mr. Chester’s unique bathroom.
With a loud whoop Harry was just about to jump into the inviting looking bathing-place when Mr. Chester stopped him.
“Look before you leap, Harry,” he cautioned, “every once in a while a tarantula or a snake or a nice fat scorpion takes a fancy to a bath, and tumbles in here and they are not pleasant companions at close range.”
An investigation showed, however, that there were none of the unpleasant intruders Mr. Chester had mentioned in the bath that morning, at least, and the two boys swam about to their hearts’ content, and after dressing came in for breakfast as delightful as their meal of the previous night in its novelty and variety.
Breakfast despatched of course the first thing to do was to superintend the unpacking of the Golden Eagle. The bullock cart had been taken down to a cleared spot not far removed from the barracks of the laborers, and a squad of brown-skinned men were already at work when Frank and Harry strolled down there setting up a sort of shelter, thatched with palm leaves under which the boys might work without being in danger of sunstroke.
Everybody on the plantation found some excuse to pass by the shelter that morning while the boys, and three or four envied laborers unpacked the Golden Eagle, and began to put the sections in place. A feature of the ship of which the boys were very proud was the ease with which, by a system of keyed joints, their beautiful sky-ranger could be taken apart or put together again very quickly. Under Frank and Harry’s coaching even the Nicaraguan laborers, none of the brightest of humankind, got along very fast, and by the time the second breakfast, as it is called, was ready the frames for the planes were in place and the trough-like cockpit or passenger car ready in position to have the piano wire strands of immense tensile strength that connected it to the steel stanchions of the planes screwed into place with delicate turnbuckles made especially for the Golden Eagle.
After lunch the work went on apace. The balloon-silk coverings of the planes were fitted with tiny brass ringed holes through which they were threaded on to the frames by fine wire. This was a tedious business and Frank and Harry did it themselves, not caring to trust so delicate an operation, and one which required so much patient care, to the good-natured, easy-going Nicaraguans, who would have been as likely as not to have scamped the job and left several holes unthreaded. As the whole pressure of the weight of the car and its occupants, fuel and lubricants was to be borne by these planes it can readily be seen why the boys placed so much importance on doing a good thorough job.
It took till sunset to complete this task and the boys were tired enough not to be sorry that their work was done when the big bell that called the laborers in from the banana groves began to clang.
In the work on the Golden Eagle the boys had been very materially aided by Billy Barnes, who photographed