I expected every moment to be caught, to be jerked forth from my
hiding-place like a landed fish. In the course of their searching they
must sooner or later move the sleeping-bag, and I would be exposed.
It occurs to me that fear must be one of the strangest of emotions; for
I can honestly say that, now that I was in this hopeless and perilous
predicament, I was no longer afraid. Certain that I must fall into the
hands of Amos Baverstock, equally uncertain of what then would be my
lot, I was resigned to my fate; I was long past apprehension. I still
thought of Bannister, and wondered concerning the map for which Amos and
Forsyth were looking, but for myself I now cared not a snap of the
fingers what became of me; and this attitude of mind I preserved
throughout the next eventful moments, else I had never acted as I did.
For Amos never found me on his own account. No doubt he would have done
so in a very little time, had not Forsyth, almost at once, struck upon
the very map for which the two were searching.
"What's this!" exclaimed Forsyth. "It seems the thing we want."
"Where?" cried Amos, who, I judged, snatched it from the other's hand.
"That's it!" he almost shouted. "The parchment map copied from that
made ages ago by Villac Umu, the High Priest of the Incas of Peru.
Bannister has translated it, and marked the route in red ink. It's all
plain as daylight."
I could tell by the sound of his voice that he was wildly excited. He
spread out the map upon the little table in the centre of the cabin,
and, feeling secure since Joshua Trust was keeping watch, spoke
breathlessly to Forsyth, relating the matter in such detail that then
and there I was made a party to the whole vile conspiracy--or as much of
it as there was any need for me to know.
"When the ancient Peruvians fled before the advance of the Pizarros," he
explained, "they carried their treasures across the mountains. These
they hid in two places: one, which is called the Little Fish, consists
of all manner of earthenware utensils; the other--the Big Fish--is
composed of golden ornaments and ingots. I have heard it said by some
that the Little Fish is in Bolivia; by others, as far north as the
Amazonas Territory--the truth being that no man living knows. It was
John Bannister himself who discovered the secret of the Greater
Treasure, or the Big Fish, as the natives call it. He lived for years
among the wild savages who inhabit the forests about the eastern
foothills of the Andes; and there, I believe, he came across some
priestly descendants of those who had served the Incas. It was high up
among the Conomamas, to the south of the great Region of the Woods, that
I first fell in with Bannister. I was there prospecting for gold, but I
had never dreamed of such a gold-mine as the Greater Treasure of the
Incas. Bannister never told me that he had learned the secret from the
priests, but I made so free as to inspect the map, when I believed him
to be sleeping."
"But is this safe?" asked Forsyth. "Supposing Bannister returns?"
"There is nothing to fear," said Amos. "Time's our own. Joshua is on
watch upon the sand-hills, and can see him coming half a mile away. We
are as safe here as anywhere."
"Well, then, go on with your story," said the other. "You saw the map
yourself?"
"No more than glanced at the thing before he had me by the throat and
well-nigh strangled me," cried Amos. "After that we parted company,
though I followed his track, and three times tried to kill him."
I heard Mr. Forsyth laugh in his silly, affected way.
"You do not mince your words," said he. "And I think I like you for it
all the better. So you tried to murder him, and failed?"
"I did not say 'murder,'" grumbled Amos. "You can do no worse than kill
in the great Region of the Woods; and whether you slay a jaguar, a
monkey or man, it is much the same in the end. But to kill a man like
John Bannister is no such easy matter. He has the ear of a panther and
the eye of a bird, and he strikes like the coral snake--silent and
deadly--and for those self-same reasons, the story I am telling you must
now turn something against myself. For I began the business by hunting
John Bannister in the Wilderness; but, before the game was a week old,
it was he that was hunting me, and hunting me, too, day and night, from
the Putumayo to Bolivia, from the Amazon to the sea.
"I sought safety, at last, in the port of Lima, where I was sheltered by
some pretence of Law and Justice; and there I joined forces with friend
Joshua and three other kindred spirits who now lie unburied, their bones
picked by the vultures.
"Well, then," Amos went on, "we five put our heads together and talked
the question out. It was plain to us that, since Bannister was such a
tough nut to crack, it were safer and simpler to go straight to the
fountain head, as the saying goes, and see what could be done with the
priests. I guessed from what Bannister had told me, that the Peruvians
were a weak-kneed, cowardly lot, and thought it would not be difficult
to frighten them into telling us all they knew. But we had to search
the woods for months before we found them, living in the midst of black
ignorance and superstition; and by then--would you believe
it!--Bannister had got wind of our intentions, and had come back upon
his own trail, crossing the mountains and descending into the Region of
the Woods.
"He turned up in time to ruin all our plans. His very presence gave the
priests the courage they had lacked. There was a stiff fight, and we,
having the worst of it, were obliged to beat a quick retreat to the
foothills, though we carried with us a hostage. So far as this man was
concerned, I took a leaf from the book of the Spaniards. I knew that
Pizarro had not gained all his knowledge by fair words and promises. I
tortured the wretch, until he shrieked for mercy and promised that he
would guide us to Cahazaxa's Tomb, upon the very crestline of the Andes,
where he swore to us the Greater Treasure was hid. Thither we went, to
find that the rascal had lied to us. A few golden ornaments there were,
in a vault cut in the living rock, at the end of a narrow passage, and
amongst these was the ancient sceptre of the Incas, but the lot were not
worth the price of our journey. Moreover, John Bannister himself had
had the audacity to follow us. Night by night, he hovered about our
bivouac, hoping to deprive us of our hostage. So I set my mind to work
to finish him; and as fortune had it, the old Tomb was as good as a
rat-trap. For there was a great boulder at the mouth of the passage,
which might be rolled down-hill to block the entrance; and even then it
was as much as Joshua and I could do. We fooled John Bannister to enter
the Tomb by making a show of moving camp and leaving the Peruvian
behind. However, when we thought we had caged him, we found to our
great dismay that we had under-estimated the man's colossal strength;
for he rolled back the boulder as though it were nothing, and came down
upon us like a raging lion."
[Illustration: "HE ROLLED BACK THE BOULDER AS IF IT WERE NOTHING
(missing from book)]
Amos paused a moment in his narrative. Listening eagerly for what was
yet to come, I heard distinctly the disgusting noise of the chewing of
one of his long, black cigars.
"We were unprepared for that," he continued. "Indeed, thinking we had
got him safely caught, to starve to death or shoot himself, we were
standing before the entrance to the passage without our arms; and before
we could master him, our party of five had been reduced to two. It was
Joshua who ended the affair. We had looted the Tomb of the little
treasure that was there; and Joshua snatched up the golden sceptre of
the Incas and struck down John Bannister, whom that night we left for
dead."
"And what of the map?" asked Forsyth.
"We searched him, but never found it. He may have left it with the
priests, or hidden it somewhere in the forest. Two years later, I again
journeyed to the Region of the Woods, and found out from the priests
that Bannister had taken it away with him, after he had returned to the
Wilderness from Cahazaxa's Tomb."
Amos had calmed down by degrees whilst he related the whole story to Mr.
Forsyth; but now, quite suddenly, he became as frantically excited as
before.
"For two years I have hunted for the man," he cried; "and I found him
here by chance. I want nothing but the map, to know where the Greater
Treasure has lain hidden for more than four centuries, and to learn how
to get there. See here!" he shouted; "the place is far to the north,
near the valley of the Yapura River. The treasure of the Incas was
carried four hundred miles from Cuzco!"
"What more could we want?" laughed Forsyth.
"Why, nothing else," said Amos. "This map's worth more to us than the
keys to the vaults of the Bank of England."
I heard a sound like the rustle of paper or parchment, from which I
judged that Amos flourished the map in his hand. And then it was that I
did a thing so bold that I have never ceased to be amazed at my own
audacity.
I had passed from sheer fright to cold deliberation. I cared not two
pins for my own safety; and though I was still in dread of Amos, I
thought not once of him, but of John Bannister, whose very shadow I
almost worshipped. Besides, it must be understood, I was already caught
like a fly in the web of these adventures. I had listened, as to a
story, to all that Amos had said, and had tried to figure in my mind's
eye the Greater Treasure, all glittering in the dust, Cahazaxa's Tomb
and the dark Region of the Woods. I knew, from what I had heard, that
if all this wealth belonged to any Christian man, that man was John
Bannister himself and never Amos Baverstock. Why Bannister was content
to live as he did, when he could be master of such riches, was a
circumstance I could not then explain, but which I was wise enough to
see was no concern of mine. Upon one thing was I well determined, with
a kind of blind pig-headedness that might have led to my own
undoing--and that was that Amos should never take away with him the map.
"Gold!" he cried. "Gold! We'll wade knee-deep in it!"
And at that, I sprang from under the sleeping-bag and hurled myself
straight at him whom I so truly feared.
Both he and Mr. Forsyth were too surprised to do little else but gape,
which gave me the chance I wanted, to snatch the parchment from his
hand.
I do not think I could have been much quicker; but he was not to be
taken unawares. The parchment was old, and must have been half torn
already, for, when he pulled one way and I the other, the thing came in
half. And then, even before Baverstock had time to drop an oath, I was
past the opening of the cabin and racing like a madman through the
gorse.