The excited First Investigator looked at the others. “I think we’ve found the nest of the eagle! Where Don Sebastián planned to hide — and to hide the Cortés Sword! A cave right under Condor Castle would fit all the clues! And José would have known about it!”
Diego asked, “You think this soldier is one of the three who were after my great-great-grandfather?”
“I think so,” Jupiter said. “And I think there must be more to this cave!”
“This pile of rock is loose,” Pete said, testing it. “Maybe it blocked off part of the cave at the same time that the entrance to the cave was buried?”
Jupiter nodded in agreement.
Pete groaned. “Okay, let’s start digging!”
The boys went quickly to work, pulling away the fallen rocks and throwing them aside. It was long, slow work. The more rocks they pulled loose, the more rolled down to fill up the spaces. But slowly and steadily the boys inched further ahead. The wall of loose rock grew thinner, until…
“I see a space!” Bob cried. He shone his torch ahead. “Yes! There’s some kind of passage behind this pile of rocks!”
They pulled away more stones and revealed a dark, narrow passage just barely large enough for Jupiter to fit through. Holding his torch, Bob crawled into the dark passage first. It went straight back. A few minutes later, Bob found himself in a cavern some three times the size of the small outer chamber.
“It’s a big cave!” Diego said as he crawled out of the passage and stood up.
The larger cave was about twice as high as the outer chamber, with sheer, slick sides of solid stone and a solid stone floor with a few outcroppings of rock.
“We must be right under Condor Castle,” Bob guessed.
“What a place to hide!” Pete exclaimed. “You could block up the outside entrance and the passage real easy.”
“With someone outside to bring in food and water,” Diego added, “a man could stay in here safely for a long time.”
“If he made it in here unseen, and had time to block the entrances,” Jupiter said. “I don’t think Don Sebastián did.”
He pointed silently to the left of the passage. Bob shone his light. There was a second skeleton! It was lying on its back behind one of the outcroppings of rock. Blackened brass buttons lay around it, and there was a rusted old rifle at its side.
“He must have tried to take cover behind the rock,” Pete said. “I guess it’s the second of those soldiers.”
“And there’s the third!” Jupiter exclaimed.
Bob’s light had swept ahead to reveal a third skeleton lying face down in the centre of the cave. There were brass buttons lying around again, and also the remains of rotted leather boots and a crumbling leather belt with a pistol holster. A Mexican War-style revolver lay inches from the fingers of the skeleton’s right hand.
“This would probably be Sergeant Brewster,” Jupiter said grimly. “A pistol, and good boots.” He shook his head. “No wonder the three soldiers never came back!”
“They didn’t desert very far, did they?” Pete said.
“Three greedy guys looking for an easy fortune,” Bob added.
“But,” Diego asked, “where is my great-great-grandfather?”
Bob shone his light all around the cavern. From where they stood the boys saw nothing else. There seemed to be no hiding places in the sheer walls.
“Someone shot those three,” Pete said. “If it wasn’t Don Sebastián, who was it? Or did Don Sebastián just leave the cave?”
“It’s possible, Second,” Jupiter said thoughtfully. “But if he’d got all three of the soldiers, why wouldn’t he just bury them and stay hidden here?”
“Maybe it wasn’t Don Sebastián who shot them,” Pete said. “I mean, three against one, and they were trained soldiers. Maybe there were others, and Don Sebastián didn’t want — ”
“It was Don Sebastián,” Bob said. “Look over there! Way at the far end of the cave! There’s another passage, and something’s in it!”
When the boys reached the far wall, they saw that there wasn’t a passage after all, but only a low cul-de-sac that went back in some five feet. Inside the cavity, where anyone would have been hidden from immediate view, was the fourth skeleton. It was leaning against one of the few loose boulders in the cave. The remnants of clothing were different this time. Silver conchos of Indian design lay near the skeleton, and by it were two rusted old rifles. Diego picked up a concho.
“It is of our local make,” he said sadly. “I think we know now why my great-great-grandfather was never seen again. All these years he has been buried in this cave.
Jupiter nodded. “We were right all along. Don Sebastián planned to hide here. That’s why he put ‘Condor Castle’ on the letter to José, to tell his son where he would be. He escaped from Brewster and his buddies, got his sword from the line shack, and came up here to the cave. But the soldiers followed him, and they shot it out in here. Don Sebastián had the advantage of knowing the lay-out of the cave. Hiding in this cul-de-sac, he could pick off the soldiers as they crawled through the narrow passage. He got all three of them, but they got him, too. Some time later an earthquake buried the cave, and no one ever knew what had happened to the four men.”
“But, Jupe,” said Bob, “why didn’t Don Sebastián’s friends come here looking for him? They knew the eagle had found a nest.”
Jupiter shrugged. “We’ll never know. Perhaps they didn’t know exactly where he was and were awaiting further word. Or perhaps the earthquake covered the cave before they could get here. And apparently the friends were all killed or scattered in the fighting that soon broke out. By the time José got home after the war, there was no one to tell him that Sergeant Brewster’s report of Don Sebastián’s death wasn’t true. José might not have believed that the sword fell into the ocean with his father — but he’d then assume it was simply stolen.”
“Jupe!” Pete cried. “The Cortés Sword! It should be right here with Don Sebastián!”
They quickly searched the small cul-de-sac. Then they looked at each other in dismay.
There was no sword!
18
The Secret Message
“Maybe,” Bob said, “Don Sebastián hid the sword in the cave.”
“In case something did happen to him,” Diego added. “He must have known those soldiers were close behind him. The Cortés Sword was a symbol of our family as well as a treasure. He would have tried to protect the sword and save it for José.”
“Let’s search!” Pete cried.
With only the one torch the boys couldn’t split up, so the search was slow work. Slow and useless. The cave was large, but there was almost no place to hide even a pin. The boys found one more little cul-de-sac and a few shallow crevices in the solid rock walls, but that was all. There were no holes in the solid stone floor, no debris to hide it under, and no place to dig and bury a sword.
“With Brewster and his cohorts close behind him, maybe on their way into the cave, I don’t think Don Sebastián would have had time to hide the sword even if there were a good place,” Jupiter said unhappily. “No, it looks as if he didn’t have the sword with him in this cave, fellows.”
“Then where is it?” Pete asked. “We’re no further along than when we started!”
Bob glumly agreed. “We’ve just about proven everything we guessed was true, but we still don’t have any clue to where the sword is.”
“I… I was so sure we were close to the answer,” Jupiter said slowly. “We must be missing something! Think about what — ”
“Jupiter?” Diego said, frowning. “If Don Sebastián wrote ‘Condor Castle’ on his letter to José, he knew José would come here to find him someday, right?”
“Yes, I suppose he expected still to be hiding here when José finally returned.”