Appleton, Victor – Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders

“Goosal say,” translated Tal, “that he know a story of a very old city away down under ground.”

“Tell us about it!” urged Tom eagerly.

But a difficulty very soon developed. Tal’s intentions were good, but he was not equal to the task of translating. Nor was the understanding of Tom and Ned of Spanish quite up to the mark.

“Say, this is too much for me!” exclaimed Tom. “We are losing the most valuable part of this by not understanding what Goosal says, and what Tal translates.”

“What can we do?” asked Ned.

“Get the professor here as soon as possible. He can manage this dialect, and he’ll get the

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information at first hand. If Goosal can tell where to begin excavating for the city he ought to tell the professor, not us.”

“That’s right,” agreed Ned. “We’ll bring the professor here as soon as we can.”

Accordingly they stopped the somewhat difficult task of listening to the translated story and told Tal, as well as they could, that they would bring the “man-with-no-hair-on-his-head” to listen to the tale.

This seemed to suit the Indians, all of whom in the small colony appeared to be very grateful to Tom and Ned for having saved the life of Tal.

“That was a good shot you made when you bowled over the jaguar,” said Ned, as the two young explorers started back to their camp.

“Better than I realized, if it leads to the discovery of Kurzon and the idol of gold,” remarked Tom.

“And to think we should come across the oiled-silk holding the poisoned arrows!” went on Ned. “That’s the strangest part of the whole affair. If it hadn’t been that you shot the jaguar this never would have come about.”