"'The party engaged a number of half-breed porters and set off, although they had been warned the bush country was disturbed. The belt of swampy forest was penetrated by the Spaniards four hundred years since, but it is, for the most part, little known by white men, and its _Mestizo_ and negro inhabitants dislike strangers.'" "The newspaper man seems remarkably well informed," Wyndham observed. "I expect he has a correspondent in the neighborhood." "'When some time had gone and no news of the explorers reached the coast, the government got alarmed,'" Chisholm went on. "'Señor Larrinaga, the head official for the district, fitted out a rescue expedition and searched the forest. They found one survivor, the trader Peters, exhausted by suffering.'" "Peters said Ramon Larrinaga was getting an important man," Marston interposed. "Sorry, sir! please don't stop." "'Peters' story was tragic. The porters had got uneasy soon after the start, but their employers forced them to go on, until one night, when the party stopped at an empty village, they vanished. In the morning, Peters left his companions, with the object of overtaking the porters, but lost their track, and returning in two or three days, found the others dead. They were in a native hut and he saw no indication that violence had been used. Since the party carried their own provisions, it did not look as if they had been poisoned. Señor Larrinaga had some trouble to reach the village. The half-breeds and negroes in the forest belt are turbulent and rebellious and the rescue party was small. He, however, pushed on and when he arrived found the hut had been burned and nobody about. Two of the explorers had previously undertaken the development of rubber and mining concessions for merchants of this city, by whom their mysterious fate is much regretted.'" Chisholm put down the cutting and the others were silent for a few moments. Wyndham looked disturbed, but lighted a cigarette, rather deliberately. "Peters ought not to have taken those fellows into the bush. He knew the risk," he said. "The others probably knew it, since the paper states they had done such work before," Marston replied. "I think not. Anyhow, they did not know all the risk. Peters did. It's significant that he escaped." "You don't imply that he ought not to have escaped?" Chisholm said, with some surprise. "Certainly not. Still the fellow's cunning and greedy. I expect he got up the expedition, and he gambled with his companions' lives. If he had won, I don't imagine they would have got much of the reward."