What was it, I wondered, that kept him delving
into the archaeological lore of the library?
I had about given him up, when he hurried into the laboratory in a
high state of excitement.
"What did you find?" I queried. "Has anything happened?"
"Let me tell you first what I found in the library," he replied,
tilting his hat back on his head and alternately thrusting and
withdrawing his fingers in his waistcoat pockets, as if in some
way that might help him to piece together some scattered fragments
of a story which he had just picked up.
"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? 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.
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