This that follows is the story that was told to me by William Rushby,
sometime boatswain of the _Mary Greenfield_, as we sat together side by
side in the ravine, the while John Bannister had gone forth alone in
peril of his life.
To begin with, he reminded me of that evening when he had spoken to me
through the porthole on the ship, when I was held a prisoner in the
cabin that I shared with Amos Baverstock. After that--it will be
remembered--I never saw him again; for when the ship arrived at Caracas,
I was transported by night to the hills beyond the town.
As for Rushby, he fell in with a friend--and that is the best of being a
sailor, who is never at a loss for a handshake and a word of greeting in
every port in all the world. For the boatswain, when the ship was
alongside the wharf, had seized the opportunity to desert, and lay in
hiding in the town, until news was brought him that Amos and his party
had set forth across the mountains. He then worked his way to Rio, and
a month later turned up in Southampton, where by the merest chance he
found John Bannister, about to set forth in quest of me across the
Western Ocean.
The boatswain told Bannister all he knew, and together they searched in
the warren for the rabbit-hole in which I had hidden my fragment of the
map. This they found at last, not much the worse for wear; and having
set my mother's fears at rest, so far as they were able, they started
forth together for the port of Colon; for Bannister, knowing whither
Amos Baverstock was bound, deemed that the shortest route.
From Colon they crossed the Isthmus to Panama, and thence sailed--as
Pizarro himself had done--down the coast to Guayaquil, the port of
Equador. From this place they journeyed inland, passed the great height
of Chimborazo, the summit of the Andes, and thence eastward, a march of
many weeks, into the Wild Region of the Woods.
Bannister realised from the first that his task was well-nigh
impossible. He might as well hope to find me in the forest as a needle
in a haystack; and so, knowing where the treasure was, he went straight
to the Wood of the Red Fish, there to await the arrival of Amos and the
others.
He had started some months after us, but he had taken the shorter route
and had been delayed by nothing. For all that, he arrived in the
neighbourhood of the Red Fish some weeks after Amos; for he and Rushby
heard nothing of the fight which took place when Atupo laid his ambush
and Forsyth was so badly wounded.
Amos--as we know--returned across the plain to wreak his vengeance upon
the Peruvian priests in the Temple of Cahazaxa. Then the man's greed of
gold drew him westward once again to search for the Big Fish, as the
natives called the treasure.
It was then that Vasco, the Spaniard, struck by the merest chance the
trail of John Bannister and Rushby. A fight took place between them,
and those were the shots which I myself had heard, one of which had
sorely wounded the boatswain in the leg.
John Bannister had saved his comrade's life. William Rushby was a big
man, broadly made and heavy; but Bannister had whipped him up as though
he were a child and carried him all night throughout the jungle, with
the result that Amos, for the time being, lost all trace of them, though
he was searching in all directions in the Wood.
It is a wonder, indeed, and something to be thankful for, that Amos and
his friends never stumbled across myself, whilst I was wandering about
with my blow-pipe and my arrows in search of the Red Fish, not knowing
where to look. For I was not then in possession of the map, of which I
have now to tell, and how it was that I found it in so singular a place.
Rushby was a wounded man and weak from loss of blood, and now Bannister
himself--great as was his strength--being overcome by his exertions,
fell into a raging fever. Knowing the Wood of old, he had carried
Rushby to the place of the Tomb of Orellano's soldier; and whilst in
hiding there he became so ill that for three days he raved, delirious.
And he had no one but a wounded man to tend him.
They had no food, and were without means of getting any; for the
boatswain could not walk a dozen yards, but from time to time must drag
himself on all-fours to the stream to fetch his companion water to
drink.
Rushby, left to his own resources, and suffering the greatest pain, had
little doubt that they were lost. Look at the affair which way he
might, he could see no way out of their difficulties; they must either
be found by Baverstock or else starve to death. For himself, he cared
not which way it ended; but upon one thing he was determined--the
fragment of the map which they had brought with them from my rabbit-hole
in Sussex should never fall into the hands of Amos Baverstock.
And so it was William Rushby himself who opened the tomb, and hid the
map in the helmet of the Spanish soldier. And that was how I found it,
a few days afterwards; for the earth had been disturbed and trampled
underfoot.
The night after that, when John Bannister was a little recovered of his
fever, though still terribly weak, they heard the report of a shot-gun,
fired not far from where they were; and Rushby, realising that Amos was
still upon their track, made the supreme effort of his life, hoping
thereby to save both Bannister and himself.
It was the old case of the blind leading the blind; for the one was so
weak that he tottered when he walked, and the other was lame of a leg,
with an open, septic wound that would not heal. But together, with
their arms around each other, they made good their escape, only to be
caught later in the great morass that lay upon the northern side of the
Wood, and being at the end of their resources and well-nigh starved to
death, they had no option but to surrender and without condition.
There is no question Amos would have killed John Bannister then and
there had it not been for one potent circumstance: Bannister knew the
secret of the Big Fish. Both Baverstock and Trust regarded my friend as
their arch-enemy, who had foiled them more than once; and Rushby told me
of the look of unutterable hatred that was stamped upon every evil
feature of the face of Amos whenever he looked at Bannister--which he
did, by the same token, no more often than he had to, since it was plain
to see that he found it hard to meet the eyes of one stronger than
himself both in mind and body, and a thousand times more honest.
And here, in his narrative, the boatswain became, on a sudden, wildly
excited, and pointed to a palm-tree that stood not far away from where
we both were seated, about a hundred yards down the ravine.
"You see that tree?" he cried; and I nodded in reply. "Well, then,"
Rushby continued, "the villain bound Bannister to that--bound him hand
and foot, and stood before him with a loaded rifle in his hands. He
cursed him; he threatened and blasphemed. He said that if Bannister
would not tell him where the treasure was, he would shoot him on the
spot. But he might as well have tried to frighten those white bones in
the tomb where I myself had hid the map."
William Rushby paused, and ran his fingers through his beard. I never
saw a man who looked more miserable than he. And yet, so foolish was I,
indeed, that I did naught but ask him silly questions, when time was of
as much account as the life of the most heroic man that ever lived.
"And Bannister would not speak?" said I.
"Speak!" the boatswain cried. "Speak he did, and to the point. He told
Baverstock to shoot."
He was silent for a moment, and sat looking at the open wound in his
leg.
"I never saw any one more angry," he continued, "and I have served in my
day under many men of the same stamp as James Dagg, if not so bad as he.
All that night I lay awake, dead sure that Baverstock would murder
Bannister, if on the following morning he still refused to speak."
"And you were camped in this ravine?" I asked.
"In this same place," said Rushby; "for I have not moved since a hundred
yards."
"And where are the others?" I asked.
"Listen!" said the boatswain. "I can do no more than spin a yarn from
the beginning. I am coming to what you want to know. Baverstock, his
threats having failed with Bannister, played his trump-card upon me, and
won the trick. Leaving Bannister still weak from fever, bound hand and
foot, he came to me by night and talked in whispers. He told me that he
held you a prisoner, and, like a fool, I believed him. He said that if
he did not learn the truth in regard to the exact position of the Big
Fish he would put not only Bannister and myself to death, but also you,
whose life he had purposely preserved throughout all these months."
"He lied!" I interrupted.
"I know he did," said Rushby. "But I swallowed all those lies as a
shark takes a baited hook. I was neither strong nor wise like
Bannister. For my own life I cared not greatly, but I was loth to
behold John Bannister put to death, and I knew how much he cared for
you, and how he would grieve if you were to die through any fault of
mine. And thus it was that I told Amos Baverstock the truth. I told
him that we had brought with us from Sussex your little fragment of the
map; and I told him that I had hidden it within the helmet in the Tomb
of the Spanish soldier.
"He said no more to me that night, but posted Vasco, the Spaniard, as a
sentry, with orders to see that Bannister and I did not communicate. And
at daybreak the next morning, in the utmost haste, he and his three
companions went back into the Wood to find the map in the Spaniard's
Tomb, and thence to discover the Red Fish itself, where the gold of Peru
is hidden."
When I heard that, I burst into loud laughter. Rushby looked at me,
surprised, and asked me why I laughed.
"He will never find it," I cried. "He will never find the map! For it
is no longer in the Tomb."
"Not in the Tomb!" he burst forth. "Then, where is it? And how do you
know where it is?"
"Because it is here," said I. And as I said the words, I pulled forth
the little piece of parchment from the quiver in which I kept my
blow-pipe arrows.
Rushby looked at it, recognised it at once, and sat staring at me, as
if, on a sudden, he had been bereft of his senses.
"How did you get this?" he blurted out.
I told him in a few words how I had found it.
"Merciful powers!" he groaned. "What have I done? Bannister is on a
wild-goose chase after all!"
He again carried his hands to his head, and sat rocking from side to
side, as he had done before. I got to my feet, and shook him violently;
for--though as yet I understood no more than half the matter--I saw that
there had been some great mistake that was like to cost us dearly.
"What is it?" I cried. "Tell me the truth! Even now, it may not be too
late to make amends. Tell me what has happened."
He looked up at me with a sad face. I am inclined to think that there
were even teardrops in his eyes.
"When Baverstock and those with him were gone," said he; "when they were
returned to the Wood and lost to view, I picked up my jack-knife, and
limped to the tree, where I cut Bannister's bonds. You must understand
that Amos departed that morning in such hot haste that he left behind
our knives and rifles, as well as much of his own equipment. However,
that is neither here nor there. I was obliged to tell Bannister the
truth; and, no sooner had I done so, than he made me realise what a
simpleton I was.
"He told me that I had been a fool to hide the map in any place where it
could afterwards be found. It had been better had I torn it to shreds.
Nor would he believe that you were still in the hands of Amos
Baverstock. And the very thought that this unholy villain was to solve
at last the riddle of the Big Fish gave, upon the instant, new strength
to Bannister. For then and there he rose to his feet, and said that he
was going himself into the Wood, that he would reach the Tomb in advance
of Amos and take possession of the map."
"He has gone there!" I shouted, like a maniac, springing to my feet and
pointing towards the Wood.
"Yes," said Rushby. "He said that he would rather die a thousand times
than that Amos should find the Treasure."
I felt as if I had received a violent blow. I knew not, for the moment,
what to do. And then I saw my course quite clear before me.
"I'll go to him!" I cried. "Take that, and keep it safe."
And I flung at him my portion of the map, and then snatched up my
blow-pipe and my quiver filled with darts, and set off running down the
ravine, as fast as my legs would carry me, towards the Wood.