After that morning, throughout the summer months when I was at school,
there was seldom a Saturday or a Wednesday afternoon when I was not to
be seen hastening eastward along the beach to see John Bannister and to
listen to his talk.
During those days I learned much of him, of his travels and adventures;
but there were certain matters upon which he would never speak in any
detail. He would never tell me, for instance, the full story of how he
had come by the great scar upon his face--a disfigurement so pronounced
as to be at once pathetic and repulsive, which had aroused my boyish
curiosity from the first. Had it not been for that scar, Bannister
would have been a handsome man, as indeed he was when the left side of
his face was to be seen in profile. He had deep-set steel-grey eyes
that looked clean through you, and the forehead of a thinker; his hair,
in those bygone days, was black, no more than touched with white upon
the temples and about the ears, and his moustache the longest I have
ever seen. Though there was never a man, I should suppose, who had less
of vanity in his composition, I think he grew it thus to hide in part
the record of the terrible wound that had extended from his right ear to
the corner of his mouth--a scar that was always rough and white, though
his face was burnt by the sun to the colour of tan.
"I came by that," he once said to me in answer to my question, "in what
might be called an honest cause. A thousand miles from nowhere, where
there is neither Law nor Right nor Wrong nor Justice, one--who may or
may not have learned the Lord's Prayer at his mother's knee--would have
put to death some score of helpless human creatures, slaughtered them
like sheep."
"Why?" I asked.
"Why," said he, "there are but few motives that sway the evil that lies
in all men, and of these greed of gold is first. And this man of whom I
speak was a great force of evil, and is so still, for I never doubt that
he is yet alive. For gold he would have murdered those who had never
wronged him, who had indeed shown him nothing but kindness and
hospitality. Fate decreed that this man's path and mine should cross;
and because I stood between him and an ill-gotten fortune, I was struck
a coward's blow. You would never guess the weapon, Dick, that gave me
my beauty mark for life?"
He paused as if waiting for an answer, though I had none to give.
"Well, then," he continued, "it was a sceptre--the golden sceptre of a
bygone dynasty of monarchs, ended four hundred years ago--kings of no
naked savages, but emperors, rulers over an ancient civilisation that
has crumbled to the dust, of a people who were cultured in their own
way, industrious and great. It is something, we may imagine, to carry
through life the scar that was given by the symbol of such authority and
power."
"And where was this?" I asked.
"Where the mountains overtop the clouds," he answered, "where one may
see the last of the sunset beyond the valleys of Peru, and the dawn
rises from the dark forests of the Upper Amazon, in which, Dick, there
are secrets that no man yet has ever lived to learn."
"It was the sceptre of the _Incas_!" I exclaimed; for I had read as a
holiday task _The Conquest of Peru_.
"The very same that was hidden from Pizarro," he made answer, "together
with all the gold of Huaraz and Cuzco."
"And who was the man who struck you?" I demanded.
"When I tell you that his name is Amos Baverstock," said Bannister,
"that he hails from the same west-country town as I do--and that is
Tiverton in Devon--and that that man to this day counts himself as my
greatest enemy, I tell you more than I should."
And though I tried my utmost, I could get from him nothing more. A
reticent man by nature, he was yet from the beginning prodigal of speech
with me. With the exception of this great Peruvian adventure--which, I
could tell from his demeanour, he ranked as the one outstanding episode
in all his life--he would answer all my questions. I thought this
strange; and there was an even stranger thing about him--and I was soon
to learn that the two were linked together. Though he had to some
extent confided in myself, he forbade me to speak of him to my
schoolfellows. He told me he was well content to have found a friend in
a boy after his own heart, much the same sort of lad as the John
Bannister who had bathed in the Exe, and, barefooted, raced other boys
upon the river bank; but, were the knowledge of his presence upon that
lonely shore to become the common property of a clamouring, crowded
school, his seclusion would be lost, his peace of mind disturbed, his
haven of rest and solitude converted into a kind of monkey-house--for
that is what he called it.
I gave my word, and kept it; and yet, I could not but think of things.
And it occurred to me that John Bannister lived as he did for other
reasons than solely to enjoy the fruits of solitude. Not that he
himself had ever told me anything that was not the truth: he had,
indeed, sojourned for so many years in the wild places of the world that
he had forgotten much concerning the ways of civilisation and could be
shy--as he was before my mother--like an overgrown yokel who stands, cap
in hand, first on one foot and then upon the other. He wanted more than
solitude, he wanted secrecy. For more reasons than one I should have
guessed it; but I was but a boy, and looked not for motives or for
causes. I was content to take the man as he was: a hero in my eyes, who
had risked his life a thousand times, who had done great deeds and seen
strange sights and wondrous places that I had only dreamed of.
And now I come, at last, to the beginning of my story: a blazing morning
in the August sun, when our friendship was four months old, when the
wheels of chance began to move, and those forces were set in motion that
whirled me away, when still a schoolboy, from sunny, sleepy Sussex, to
be a wayfarer with grim Death himself in dark, tropic lowlands, or amid
the very clouds.
It being holiday-time, and I having no thought in my head than what
pertained to my hero, I set forth earlier than usual, and took the
straight cut across the fields, instead of following the shore. This
led me to a group of sand-hills, not half a mile from where Bannister
had pitched his camp; and amid these I stumbled upon three men, seated,
heads together, in the shadow of a gorse bush.
I cannot for the life of me explain why I did it--never before or since
have I played the eavesdropper of my own free choice--but the moment I
set eyes upon a hunchback, with a clean, wrinkled face and two small
eyes as black as boot-buttons, down I dropped on all fours, like a man
shot, and crept silently and swiftly to the cover of a clump of
reed-like grass.
I think the sight of the man frightened me. He had the cruellest face I
had ever seen; and there was cunning in it, too. Also, there was a
suggestion of merriness, of latent mirth, about him--patent in the
shining, bead-like eyes--that caused me instantly to shudder. Have you
ever considered the eyes of a half-grown pig, as something apart from
the glistening, inquisitive, joyful, and highly entertaining quadruped
that a young pig happens invariably to be? They are wicked and gleeful,
defiant and pitiless, those little, twinkling eyes. They are more
fearful than those of a snake, because they are more alive and equally
soulless. Well, then, such eyes had this man: eyes at once merciless
and mischievous. And so it was, I must suppose, that I hid myself amid
the grass.
And then one of those who were with him used these very words; and when
I heard them, it was as if I was deprived of the power to breathe.
"I wish I were a hundred miles from here, I can tell you that. He's not
likely to forget that it was you, Amos Baverstock, that trapped him and
left him for dead, and that it was I who struck the blow."
I lay in the long grass, close as a hare, my heart pumping within me
like an engine. I had heard and seen enough already to know that my
friend was in danger. I had a sense of some calamity impending, but no
time just then to guess at the meaning of it all; for I must listen to
the quiet, cold voice of Amos Baverstock--the hunchback with the pig
eyes and a long, thin nose like a weasel.
"You were right enough in London," said he, "when I told you I had
tracked him down, as I swore to you both I should."
"Maybe," said the other, "I forgot, for the moment, what he was. I
would sooner face a tiger."
He was a rough-looking man, with a red, untidy beard, and there was
something about him of the sailor.
"Tut, man," said Amos; "you make a mountain of a molehill! I do not
propose to set about this matter like a fool. He's lying yonder like an
old dog-fox in his earth, and we'll send a terrier in to fetch him out."
"Me!" cried the red-bearded man, horror-stricken at the thought.
But, before Amos Baverstock could answer, the third man spoke for the
first time; and my attention being thereby attracted towards him, I was
at once astonished at everything about his individuality: his voice, his
personal appearance, the words he used, his very attitude of
carelessness and ease.
"_Cave tibi cane muto._"
That is what he drawled, and though I was then a schoolboy who had
struggled through the dull prose of Caesar to the loftier realms of
Virgil, I must confess that fear had so deprived me of my wits that I
understood no word, except the first.
The speaker lay flat upon his back, with his hands folded behind his
head, and his face exposed to the sun--like a tripper who would go back
to London nicely tanned. I observed that he had taken off his coat and
rolled it into a pillow, and that the shirt he wore was of the softest,
flimsiest silk.
He was dressed like a fop in the height of the fashion of that day,
wearing a white tie, with a great gold pin in it, a well-curled
moustache and those short side-whiskers which were then the vogue. He
had light-blue eyes and fair, curly hair, and had it not been for the
side-whiskers, would have looked much younger than he was. Everything
about him suggested that he was--or should have been--a gentleman of
means and leisure.
"_Cave tibi cane muto_," he repeated, more slowly than before. And this
time I had the sense to understand it: "Beware of the silent dog."
"Just so," said Amos. "We will tempt the dog with a bone. Trust to me,
you dolt," he cried, turning sharp upon the man with the red beard, who
was sitting with a scowl upon his face and his legs crossed like a
Hindoo. "Ask yourself, have I ever yet sent you on a wild-goose chase?
Am I one to take unnecessary risks?"
"Then, shoot him, take what we want, and have done with it," growled the
other.
"Friend Joshua," said Amos, "we are some eight thousand miles from
Chimborazo, and probably not two miles from a police-station. We want
no questions asked, no hue and cry. That would ruin everything."
"There's something in that," admitted the red-bearded man, whose name
was evidently Joshua.
Amos chuckled.
"This is no baby's game," said he. "Bannister fears neither man, wild
beast nor devil. No more am I afraid of him. I have tricked him once,
and I can trick him again. Were I to get within arm's length of him, it
is true, as like as not he would wring my precious neck; and the same
applies to you, friend Joshua; for he will not have forgotten that it
was you who struck him down at the end of the passage that leads from
Cahazaxa's Tomb. But Mr. Forsyth here, he has never set eyes on in all
his life."
"In other words," cut in the young man with the side-whiskers, still
stretched at full length upon the ground--"in other words, I myself am
the bone to be presented to the silent, dangerous dog. A pleasant
prospect--but I acquiesce. Having gone into this business, I am
prepared to take what comes."
Though he had spoken with a shade more animation than before, he had
neither moved an inch nor troubled even to open his eyes. A calm
customer, in very truth, was Mr. Gilbert Forsyth, as I was afterwards to
learn, something to my cost--a man with more manners than morals, who
was never afraid and never surprised, and who smelt of the vile pomade
with which he plastered his moustache.
"Sir," said Baverstock, "you are the very man for me. I promise you
that, if we pull this business through, we shall wade knee-deep in
gold."
"I want gold to spend and not to paddle in," said Forsyth. "Give
orders, Mr. Wisdom; I am here solely to obey."
Amos produced a long and very black cigar, bit the end off and began to
chew, making his face all wrinkles. I thought that he would light it,
but he did no such thing. He would look at it with one eye half closed,
use it much as a musical director wields his baton to punctuate his
words, and then chew again, until the brown juice was streaming from the
corners of his mouth.
"Go to John Bannister this morning," said he. "Go to him now, if you
like. He doesn't know you from Adam. Pretend you're just an idle,
inquisitive holiday-maker who has dropped across him by chance; get into
conversation with him, ask him foolish questions; and then, without
advertisement, just--drop that across his head."
As he said this, he threw across to Mr. Forsyth some kind of weighted
implement, such as a house-breaker might have in his possession. It was
about the size and shape of a belaying-pin, and attached to the thin end
was a leather strap to secure it to the wrist.
"Sounds simple enough," drawled Forsyth. "However, for the sake of
argument, suppose I fail. I understand from what you both tell me, he
has the strength of two ordinary men."
"Six," growled the red-bearded fellow, who seemed to me to be a
discontented rascal.
"Strike hard and without warning," said Amos. "In case of mishap, Trust
and I will be at hand to help you."
I thought, at the time, that Trust was another man--a fourth party in
this vile conspiracy; for I did not then know that the name of the
red-bearded man--as great a rogue as Amos himself, if not a tenth as
clever--was Joshua Trust, who had served before the mast in the Royal
Navy, to be tried by court-martial for a felony and afterwards
discharged.
Mr. Forsyth, in the meantime, picked up the bludgeon and toyed with it
in his hand.
"A useful tool," he observed. "Convenient to carry, and--I should
say--effective to use. To be candid, I'm a little afraid of it. Though
I have not the pleasure of knowing Mr. Bannister, I should be sorry--for
my own sake as well as his--to deprive him of his life."
"You need not be afraid of that," laughed Amos. "Had his skull been
thinner than a bullock's, it would have been broken years ago. We want
him senseless, when we can bind him hand and foot, and help ourselves to
the very thing we want. He has got it somewhere, sure enough; and had I
to search the world for it, I would find it in the end."
And then he clapped his hands and rubbed them together; and I have never
seen in all my life an expression of such malignant glee.
"Once it is ours," he cried, "across the Western Ocean! Nothing stands
between us three and fortune. Gold!" he almost shrieked, "I tell you,
it is there knee-deep in a cavern as large as a cathedral: golden
ornaments and vessels, bars and rings and bracelets. You shall have
your fair share, Mr. Forsyth; for all's square between us, and, I
confess, we could not very well move in this business without you.
Joshua here will tell you, though I may be an ill man to cross in more
ways than one, I never yet went back upon my friends. You've come into
this affair to help us, and I'll not forget it."
"Dear me, no!" drawled Forsyth. "I join you for my own ultimate gain. I
recognise that I am blessed with as little conscience as yourselves, and
see profit in the matter. I know nothing of this fellow Bannister, and
care still less. Besides, I have, I suppose, a natural taste for such
an adventure as you propose. I am heartily tired of this dreary
country, with its railways, gas-pipes and antimacassars. I would, in a
word, stake all I have upon an only venture, to die soon or rich--I care
little which it be."
And thereupon he yawned, placing the tips of his fingers before his
mouth in a manner exceedingly affected.
They talked then for a while of other things; and all the time I was
seeking an opportunity to escape, to hasten to my friend to warn him of
his danger; and yet, though I was well screened from view of Amos
Baverstock and his companions, it was some time before I could find the
courage to bestir myself. I feared that they might hear me; and the
very sight of Amos had instilled within me a sense of dread which
returns to me even to this day whenever I think of the man.
I lay in the long grass like a wounded bird: it was as if I had not the
power to move. My thoughts were running riot--Bannister to be
shamefully assaulted, something stolen, and I kept repeating to myself
the magic phrase, "Gold knee-deep in a cavern large as a cathedral."
There was something about all this of the kind of adventures I had often
imagined; I had thought that I would revel in the prospect of such
dangerous escapades; and here was I, scared out of my wits, too
terrified to move, my heart beating violently, as if I were out of
breath from running.
Indeed, it was only the thought that Amos Baverstock or one of the
others would get up to go, and then discover me, that made me shift from
where I had been hiding; and no sooner was I out of earshot than I set
off running as if pursued by fifty fiends. I never ran so fast before
or since. Over the sand-hills, stumbling amidst the shingle, breaking
my way through gorse and hedgerow, I came at last to John Bannister's
cabin, lying in a hollow by the sea.
"Mr. Bannister!" I cried. "Mr. Bannister! Something dreadful is about
to happen!"
I was, I suppose, half blinded by my running; or I had not the sense to
look about me. I stood before the opening of the cabin, wringing my
hands and crying out like a fool:
"Mr. Bannister! Mr. Bannister! Come quickly!"
I had for answer neither the sight of his great strength nor the
familiar sound of his voice, but just the wash of the sea at high tide
beyond the ridge where the buckthorn grew, a great rhythmical, breathing
sound, as if a giant were slumbering.
I was more afraid than ever when I realised that he was not there, and
it might take time to find him; for, befogged as my wits were, I knew
well enough that the occasion was one that would admit of no delay.
I ran straight to the beach, and looked to the eastward and westward.
For a moment I had hoped to find him, for he would sometimes bathe in
the sea at that hour of the day; but a glance or so was enough to tell
me I should not find him there.
I wandered for a while somewhat aimlessly amongst the shrubberies that
crowned the margin of the sand-hills and the shingle, and then returned
to the cabin. As things happened, I must have done so in the nick of
time; for, when I had searched in odd corners, as if looking for a
hidden thimble, instead of a man of six-foot-four, I went to the
threshold, and looking out beyond the gorse, beheld the tall figure of
Mr. Gilbert Forsyth, strolling towards me, swinging in his hand his
silver-mounted Malacca cane.
I did not know whether or not he had seen me. It was sufficient for the
moment that I had no way of escape. The cabin--as I have said--had been
built in a hollow, and to cross the ridge that encompassed it would
bring me into full view of Mr. Forsyth.
On the other hand, I could think of nowhere to hide. I stood for a
moment irresolute, with clenched fists, cudgelling my brains and wishing
that I was anywhere else upon the wide face of the earth. Then I heard
a footstep on the shingle without, and as I drew back into the shade of
the hut, I saw the man's shadow cast upon the threshold.
I looked about me in a wild and silly way, and then without a thought
dived under the great fur sleeping-bag that lay ruffled against the
wall.
Forsyth entered. I could not see him, but I could hear him moving to
and fro, and once he even trod upon my foot. Then I heard his voice,
raised in a kind of drawling sing-song, as if he called to someone at a
distance.
"Come on," he sang. "The way's clear. The dog's out of his kennel."
A full minute may have elapsed. On such occasions, time counts for next
to nothing. But, presently, I was aware that, besides myself, there
were three persons in that small place, and one of them was Amos
Baverstock.
"Here's our chance," said he. "Joshua, keep watch from without. He may
not be far away, and it would be a rough-and-tumble business if he
caught us in the act. And now, sir, help me to find the map. The thing
must be somewhere in this hut, unless he carries it always on his
person."
And at those words was I made to realise that, as sure as I had been
christened Richard Treadgold in the little church at Middleton, I had
done a foolish thing and was like to be made to pay for it.
For Amos Baverstock was come to search for a certain map, the
significance of which I then, of course, knew nothing. Whether or not
he would find this map was a question of itself; but there was no sort
of a question within the bounds of probability that he could look for
long and fail to discover _me_. And then, in truth, the fat would be in
the fire.