“We’ve missed the four-thirty-five, so we will have to return the way we came,” said Cortlandt.  “I’d like to stop at Gatun on a business matter of some importance, and if you don’t mind a half-hour’s delay, we’ll do so.”

Kirk expressed entire acquiescence in any plans that suited the convenience of his rescuers, and the three pursued their way to the station.  But here an unexpected embarrassment arose.  As they made ready to board Colonel Jolson’s motor-car, they were annoyed to find that Allan insisted on going, too.  He insisted, moreover, in such extravagant fashion that Mrs. Cortlandt at last was moved to say:  “For Heaven’s sake, let the poor thing come along.”  And thereafter the Jamaican boy sat on the step of the machine, his hat in hand, his eyes rolled worshipfully upon the person of his hero, his shining face ever ready to break into a grin at a glance from Kirk.

Once more the little automobile took on the dignity of a regular train and sped out of the network of tracks behind Colon.  As it gained speed Mrs. Cortlandt, to divert her guest’s mind from his recent ordeal, began to explain the points of interest as they passed.  She showed him the old French workings where a nation’s hopes lay buried, the mechanical ruins that had cost a king’s ransom, the Mount Hope Cemetery, whither daily trains had borne the sacrifice before science had robbed the fever of its terrors.  She told him, also, something of the railroad’s history, how it had been built to bridge the gap in the route to the Golden West, the manifold difficulties overcome in its construction, and the stupendous profits it had made.  Having the blood of a railroad-builder in his veins, Anthony could not but feel the interest of all this, though it failed to take his attention wholly from the wonders of the landscape that slipped by on either side.  It was his first glimpse of tropic vegetation, and he used his eyes to good advantage, while he listened politely to his informant.

The matted thickets, interlaced with vine and creeper, were all ablaze with blossoms, for this was the wet season, in which nature runs riot.  Great trees of strange character rose out of the tangle, their branches looped with giant cables and burdened with flowering orchids or half hidden beneath other parasites.  On every hand a vegetable warfare was in progress—­a struggle for existence in which the strong overbore the weak—­and every trunk was distorted by the scars of the battle.  Birds of bright plumage flashed in the glades, giant five-foot lizards scuttled away into the marshes or stared down from the overhanging branches.  A vivid odor of growing, blooming herbage reached the nostrils.