I held my breath and listened, thinking that I would hear other shots,
as I had done before. But no sound came to break the stillness. Save
for the birds among the tops of the trees, and a big, solitary monkey
that swung himself from branch to branch, chattering as he went, I was
surrounded by the silence of the woods.
It was no news to me that I stood in the gravest peril. Such had been
the case for many a day; and--as I have said--I had come to look upon
life as of little worth. Amos I knew to be somewhere in the
neighbourhood; and I knew also that if he found me it would go ill with
me; I should not live for long if I fell again into that great villain's
clutches.
And yet I did no more than shrug my shoulders. I had sublime faith in
myself, in my youth, and the Divine Providence that, so far, had kept me
from the way of harm. I had my blow-pipe, too; and, if the worst should
happen, I could use it well enough to drive one of my feathered arrows
straight into the heart of Amos Baverstock.
One learns, in the everlasting twilight of the woods, where danger lurks
on every hand, to live for the moment only, to let the future look after
itself. And so did I now; for Amos was no more to me than the jaguar
and the anaconda--brutes of prey, all three of them, and the mortal man
the vilest. Death in many forms and shapes was all about me--sharp
fangs, the serpent's coils, poison, and disease. There was no need to
scent from afar such dangers as might never come my way.
And so, once again, I turned my thoughts to the Red Fish, standing forth
before me in the sunlight--a quaint and humorous-looking thing, had I
been able for a moment to forget its wonderful significance.
I sat and looked at it; it may have been for half an hour, or even more.
And my memory took me back to that sunny August morning by the Sussex
shore, where I had first heard Amos speak of the Greater Treasure of the
Incas; and I remembered, word for word, what he had said: "Gold! It is
there knee-deep in a cavern, large as a cathedral." And here was I, Dick
Treadgold, in the very place myself, after a series of most strange and
unbelievable adventures, thousands of miles from Sussex. My very name,
I thought, was to prove a kind of analogue with my destiny and actions;
for I was fated, so it seemed, to tread on gold.
And at that, I pulled out my fragment of the map, and looked at it,
reading again and again the passage that had puzzled me so often:
"_The tail of the Fish. A blow-pipe from the nose of the Fish.
Twenty yards across the Brook. Three feet, below the ground--a
Ring._"
There, sure enough, was the tail of the Fish--or, at least, the upper
part of it, a sharp spur of rock protruding from the ground. I got to
my feet and approached, taking my blow-pipe with me.
"_A blow-pipe from the nose of the Fish._" That clause had always
puzzled me. It seemed possible that I should use my blow-pipe as a kind
of measuring-rod; but I could not think in what direction I should place
it. Besides, the nose of the Fish was at least six feet from the
ground. And then I observed for the first time what I had not perceived
before; namely, that the body of the Fish was curved; and it was this
that gave me the very clue I wanted. What if I were to use the
blow-pipe as a plumb-line?
At all events, I would try. So I drove the blow-pipe into the soft
ground, as near the perpendicular as I could judge, in such a manner
that it just touched the tip of the Fish's nose.
I read my instructions again--though I already knew them by heart, and
tried to guess their meaning. I crossed the brook, which in that place
was very shallow, the water reaching little above my ankles; and no
sooner did I find myself upon the other side than I observed that my
wooden blow-pipe and the sharp, upright spur of rock that formed the
Fish's tail were in the same alignment.
"_Twenty yards across the Brook_" could have but a single meaning. Since
the Red Fish itself was not that distance from the water, twenty yards
must be measured upon the other side; and this I at once resolved to do.
I already had an imaginary line, extending an indefinite distance. If I
held to this line--or if, in other words, I kept my blow-pipe
immediately between myself and the Fish's tail--I could not go far wrong
by stepping the prescribed twenty yards from the margin of the brook.
This I did, and, to verify my position, looked to see that I still had
my two fixed points in line with one another. I had verged a little to
the left, but soon put this right by taking a short pace in the other
direction. And then I repeated to myself the last sentence of my
instructions: "_Three feet, below the ground--a Ring_."
Down I went upon all-fours, and began to scrape up the earth in my
hands. For the soil was soft, though now and again I hit upon a rock,
which, without great difficulty, I loosened with my knife, to cast aside
and continue with my work.
It was nightfall by the time that I had gained a depth of three feet or
more; but, by then, I had come upon a great, smooth slab of stone; and
this discovery set my heart so wildly beating that I was obliged to
leave my task and rest awhile, drinking deeply of the water of the
brook.
In the moonlight I laboured still, and a slow business it was,
displacing the earth a handful at a time, and scratching with the Indian
knife that Atupo, the priest, had given me. I was hot and weary, and my
finger-tips were painful; and yet I could not desist, but worked on till
midnight, to be at last rewarded. I came across a metal ring, fastened
to the slab, about eight inches in diameter. And when I had washed the
earth away, bringing water in my quiver from the brook, I discovered
that this ring was made of gold.
I tugged at it and pulled with all my might, but could not move the
stone an inch; so back I went to my work again, grubbing with my hands,
for all the world like a dog that smells a rat. Sheer fatigue at length
quite overcame me, and I was obliged to lie down and rest, and fell
sound asleep, though I had intended no such thing.
I awoke suddenly, at the first sign of daybreak, and went to the great
hole I had made in the ground, and wondered at myself that I had done so
much. The stone slab, I saw, was almost clear of earth.
In less than an hour the great slab was free. I cut round the edges of
it with my knife, to loosen it, and then looked down upon my work, to
see how I might approach the conclusion of my task with the greatest
prospect of success.
The stone slab was about three feet wide and twice as long. And the
gold ring, I could not fail to notice, was much nearer one end than the
other. As the handle is never to be found in the middle of a door, this
seemed to suggest that the slab opened upon hinges. It remained to be
seen, however, whether or not I had the strength to lift it.
I tried more than once, and failed, though I moved the stone an inch or
so. Finally, I went into the Wood and cut a length of liana, one end of
which I tied to the golden ring. And then I tugged with all my might;
and the stone slab uprose like a derrick on a ship, attained a vertical
position, and there remained stationary and upright.
I stepped to the hole and looked down upon a narrow flight of steps all
covered with the earth that had fallen from above. Down these I
hastened, presently to find myself in utter darkness, so that there was
nothing for it but for me to return and look about me for some means of
making a torch.
I was now as skilled as any forest Indian in the art of making fire. For
months I had journeyed without matches, tinder-box or magnifying-glass.
I knew where to find touch-wood in the forest, and could strike sparks
from pieces of flint. For an hour I laboured in the making of a torch,
which I constructed of touchwood bound about by reeds. And whilst I was
thus employed I realised for the first time how hungry I was--for I had
eaten nothing for twenty-four hours, though I had consumed great
quantities of water.
And now I did a strange thing, in view of the fact that I have always
been somewhat impetuous by nature and was then but a boy in years.
Though I was actually trembling with excitement, all eagerness to behold
the interior of the vault that I knew to be at the foot of the steps, I
went deliberately into the jungle in search of food.
Finding no living thing that I could kill but monkeys, I was obliged to
content myself with wild nuts and berries; and then I returned to the
Red Fish, drank again from the brook, took up my torch and lit it from
the fire that I had kindled. And then down I went into the vault, to
feast my eyes upon the buried Treasure of the Incas.
The stairway was at first so shallow that I must stoop as I descended;
but presently I found myself in a little chamber, hollowed out of the
living rock, the walls of which were of the same red granite as the
strange stone above. And weird and almost magic did the whole place
look in the light of my burning torch.
For the very walls sparkled as with diamonds. Everywhere were little
grains of felspar, mica, or quartz, which caught the reflection of the
light. And when I looked upon the floor I saw that Amos had been right.
I trod upon bars of gold, all of the same length and size, and laid with
such regularity and neatness that they might have been the palings of a
fence--or many fences--spread flat upon the ground.
How deep these ingots went I could not say, and was not then disposed to
inquire, for my attention was attracted by an arched opening, like the
doorway of a church, on the other side of the room. Through this I
passed, and found myself at the head of another flight of stone steps,
much broader and wider than the others--a gigantic stairway that
descended into the middle of a chamber so vast that my torch did no more
than throw a kind of halo all around me.
I rushed down these steps with a loud, glad cry, and below I hastened
like a madman, here and there, passing along the walls, crossing at
random that wide, gloomy subterranean room.
Everywhere was gold, stacked upon the floor, piled against the walls. I
saw golden chalices and cups, bracelets, rings and girdles; great jugs
of gold and golden basins, besides bars and ingots that one might have
counted by the thousand.
I know not why it was, but the very sight of it made me dizzy, as I
staggered blindly about that wondrous place. At times I slipped and
stumbled, and at other times I fell between those glittering stacks, to
find myself--as Amos Baverstock had said in my hearing--knee-deep in the
very stuff that has made the world as wicked as it is.
And then, at last, I sat down upon I know not what, save that it was
gold. The very sight that I had seen had exhausted me far more than all
my travels and privations. I felt sick at heart and weary. I looked
about me with tired and dreamy eyes.
It seemed to me strange--now that I had beheld this wonder--that I had
endured so much for sake of it. How had it come to pass that men prized
so highly what after all is no more than yellow metal? Here was enough
of it, in very truth, to serve the needs of a nation; and here it had
lain for four hundred years--and the world was none the worse. How
little of this vast treasure would be enough for me, or even Amos
Baverstock, in spite of all his greed!
It frightened me--and that is the truth of it. I could not think what I
should do if all this precious wealth were mine. And then I wondered if
I had any right to call it mine just because it was mine for the moment
to gaze upon, to regard in breathless bewilderment and fear.
You may behold that which you never own, as you may own that which you
never see. Boy though I was, so much was clear to me as daylight. Nor
had I any reason to suppose that I was the first to look upon this
marvel, since the fugitives from Cuzco, centuries ago, had carried it
across the mountains to hide it in this secret place. John Bannister
himself, perhaps, had looked upon it, though he had never told me so. If
it belonged to any living man, all this wealth was his.
I felt by now as if I were about to faint; and besides, my torch was
burning low. And therefore I got unsteadily upon my feet and walked
into the little outer room, and thence ascended the steps in the broad
light of day. And there I stood breathing deeply, with my eyes closed
and my mouth parched as if by thirst.
On a sudden I cast my burning torch into the brook before me, and fell
upon my knees and prayed to God. I prayed aloud, as if the living trees
and running water and the red stones about me could all hear my prayer.
And it was the Lord's Prayer that I had learned at my mother's knee;
for, boy though I was, I felt that which I had looked upon was the very
pith and kernel of all temptation to which, since Eden, humanity was
heir.