I felt, at that moment, so despondent that I was disposed to burst into
tears, to cry like a child through utter disappointment. For a minute
we discussed the matter between ourselves, and tried in vain to see one
ray of daylight. Look at it as we might, from every aspect, the
situation seemed just about as bad as it could be.
Bannister himself was too exhausted to continue the pursuit, and Rushby
was a wounded man, whom, in any case, we dared not again leave alone in
the ravine.
"What is to be done?" I asked. And there was something so woeful in my
expression that Bannister smiled.
"We must make the best of a bad business, Dick," said he. "After all,
Rushby's life is of more account than the Treasure. Clearly, it is not
safe for us to remain here in open country. We must return to the Wood,
and find a place where we can hide. A few hours' rest, and I shall have
strength enough to go on; but I am not disposed to leave my comrade
until his life is out of danger."
As he spoke, he placed a hand upon Rushby's shoulder; and I saw by the
look in the boatswain's face that he thought no less of John Bannister
than I.
"You'll not wait for me, sir," the boatswain answered. "I want nothing
better than to see Amos run to earth; for I have not forgotten the
voyage of the _Mary Greenfield_, when mainly through him I was cast into
irons. Besides, it's my fault that he has now got the map, and I'll
never cease to blame myself for that."
"Forget it all!" said Bannister. "And as for future plans, they can
wait till we are rested. The sooner we are out of this place the
better; for we know not what Baverstock may do."
Then and there we gathered together what little baggage we possessed, as
well as everything that Amos had left behind him when he had hurried
from the camp. There were two rifles between us--and we wanted no more,
since Rushby was a casualty; but we could find only ten rounds of
ammunition, and I was without my blow-pipe.
I loaded myself with the rifles and equipment, whereas Bannister picked
up Rushby in his arms and carried him into the Wood. There we had not
long to search before we found a good hiding-place, a little hollow in
the midst of the thickets, where, Bannister told us, a jaguar had reared
her cubs. There was a stream near by, that connected, beyond doubt,
with the Brook of Scarlet Pebbles, and we were therefore well supplied
with water.
Almost at once the three of us fell fast asleep. For myself, I had
never been so fatigued; and yet I awoke at daybreak, and immediately,
without disturbing my companions, went forth in search of food, and did
not return until I had as many wild fruits and berries as I could
conveniently carry in Bannister's haversack. I then made a fire; and
whilst I was thus employed the other two awakened.
Bannister's first office was to attend to the boatswain's wound. This
he washed and dressed--very skilfully, I thought--and then ordered
Rushby to lie quite still and to make no attempt to move.
Whilst we were eating we talked of what was best to do; and in this
argument the boatswain took a leading part. He had a mind of his own,
and was determined, from the first, to have his way.
He told us that he was well enough where he was, if we left him food to
eat and a pannikin of water within reach, so that there would be no need
for him to move. As for John Bannister and me, we must take the two
rifles and what ammunition there was, and set forward without delay
towards the Big Fish, to find Baverstock and his three companions.
"Though the odds are two to one against you," he added, "that will make
no difference. Stalk him, as you would a wild beast, and put a bullet
through the scoundrel, as he comes up from the vault. This evening he
will be there or thereabouts. Our one consolation is that he has no
means of taking the Treasure away. But you must be quick, sir; for I'm
open to a wager that Baverstock goes back across the plain, to find
forest Indians to work for him under the whip, that he may carry all
this gold to one of the rivers, and thence down-stream in more than one
canoe."
There was little question that William Rushby had got the hang of the
affair. Indeed, all that he predicted was, or might have been, the
truth. It was not so much, I think, because Bannister wished to thwart
his ancient enemy, as because he desired to see for himself how the
whole business would end, that we set forward into the Wood at about
midday, our destination being the Red Fish itself.
Bannister told me that you could not reach the Treasure from the
northern side, because the brook there opened out into a swamp, where
you could sink to the neck in mud, to be eaten alive by leeches. It was
therefore necessary for us to journey by a circuitous route towards the
west, until we came upon the Brook of Scarlet Pebbles, somewhere to the
south of the tunnel that led to the Fish. However, we had the sun to
guide us, and both Bannister and I were well acquainted with the Wood.
And now, for once, I must tell my story from a point of view other than
my own, and follow, for a few hours, the fortunes of Amos Baverstock.
Afterwards, I was destined to behold with my own eyes the raving lunacy
of that unhappy man, and to witness the spectacle of a tragedy, at once
gruesome and fantastic. But first, I tell the story as I heard it from
the lips of Mr. Forsyth; and very weird it is.
With the map in his possession, Amos set forth without delay to feast
his eyes upon the Treasure. Though his three companions were overcome
by fatigue, and there was but half an hour that evening before sunset,
the hunchback would not halt until darkness compelled him to do so; and
that night the excited and disordered condition of his mind would not
allow him to sleep.
He had them up in the small hours that they might be ready to start at
daybreak; and they struck the Brook of Scarlet Pebbles early that
morning, but a few miles to the north of the Big Fish.
Forsyth afterwards told us that all that day Amos never spoke, but
forged ahead with the map in his hand, the others following as best they
could. The man was now blinded by his own greed and avarice. He seemed
alike incapable of fatigue and insensible to physical pain; for he
rushed forward with such mad impetuosity that he was cut to pieces on
the thorns, and was soon bleeding profusely from a score of places.
He came, on a sudden, upon the swamp, into which he plunged so
recklessly that he was waist-deep before he knew it. Then, to his great
alarm, he found that he was unable to move. He was held tight in the
mud, and was at once attacked by scores of little leeches.
He threw up his arms into the air like a drowning man, crying out
piteously for help. Forsyth, as cool as ever--as I can well imagine--at
once cut down a long bamboo, and held this out to Amos, who was
eventually hauled back to safety, though covered from head to foot in
mud.
The leeches they were obliged to cut away from him with knives; and all
the time the man reviled them for not making greater haste, telling them
repeatedly that they were but a short distance from the Treasure, upon
which he was determined to set eyes that very day.
It was then that his companions, for the first time, suspected that the
man's mind was disordered; for Amos talked like a lunatic, and there was
a strange look in his eyes. For instance, he whipped round upon Forsyth
and told him that he had ever been a stumbling-block, with his refined
manners and his London airs, since the expedition started from Caracas.
At which Forsyth laughed aloud.
"Your memory is something short," said he. "Less than five minutes ago
I saved your life. You were sinking even as I pulled you out. Had it
not been for me, you would have been drowned in black, stinking mud, and
your corpse devoured by leeches."
At that, Amos burst into the wild and hideous laughter of a madman.
"Liar!" he shrieked. "You saved the map! It was not me you saved; it
was the map--and without risk to yourself. Much good may it do you! I
shall see to it that you profit nothing. Trust Amos Baverstock for
that!"
And then he laughed again, and again called Forsyth "Liar!"
At the time they thought little or nothing of all this, the high talk of
an excited man. They believed him to be in one of his fits of
uncontrollable anger, when he could never rightly be held responsible
for either his actions or his words. But they left him as he was,
sticky with the black mud, with many horrid little leeches still glued
upon his skin, that was already all blood-stained from the thorns. And
they made a circuit of the swamp towards the east, and came suddenly
upon the open place where the Red Fish stood forth from the ground, with
opened mouth, as if in the act of leaping from the water.
They had no need to cast about them, as I had done, in order to find the
entrance to the vault; for I had left traces as plain as any printed
book to read, and the flowers and ferns that I had planted were not yet
so well established that they looked quite natural.
Amos rushed in like a mad dog, and in feverish haste fell to working
with his knife, scattering broadcast the soft, rich soil that lay
between the rocks. In this task he was assisted by the others--for now
they were all near as wild with excitement as Amos himself. In a little
time they had the slab laid bare; then they threw it backwards, so that
they beheld the stone steps leading downward to the vault.
They had no need to make a torch, as I had done, since they had always
carried with them a small collapsible lantern, and with this in one hand
and the map in the other, Amos led the way down the steps, through the
ante-chamber where the floor was paved with ingots, and thence into the
great vault below.
And, thereupon, there is little doubt that Amos Baverstock went wholly
mad. He rushed here and there, yelling like a fiend. He snatched up
the gold in handfuls--the drinking vessels, the rings and bracelets and
the ingots--and cast them, in a kind of frenzy, right and left, all the
time shouting and dancing and filling that great chamber with the echoes
of his laughter.
Then he filled his arms with ingots, and tied these together with a
rifle-sling, so that they resembled a great golden faggot, and weighed
far more than any normal man could carry. For the time being, he knew
not what he did; but was possessed of seven devils that were brothers,
and more like to one another than in general brothers are; and their
names were Avarice, Violence, Jealousy, Cruelty, Revenge, Cowardice, and
Cunning. Forsyth and the others regarded him amazed.
Amos dashed up the stairway, carrying his great load upon his crooked
back. When he reached the open air, he threw his bundle down upon the
ground, and then turned an ear to listen at the stairhead.
He heard Forsyth, Trust, and Vasco ascending in pursuit of him; and then
again he burst into his madman's laughter, and, laying hold of the slab,
hurled it back into its place, and rolled a great boulder upon the top
of it; for his strength was not his own, but that of all the seven
devils that were brothers who possessed him.
"Lie there and rot!" he shouted. And they below heard his footsteps as
he danced upon the stone.
[Illustration: "'LIE THERE AND ROT!' HE SHOUTED. AND THEY BELOW HEARD
HIS FOOTSTEPS AS HE DANCED UPON THE STONE."]
They cried out to him to be merciful and to release them; but he only
laughed the more, telling them that he was going alone across the plain
to find Indian porters to carry the Treasure through the wilderness, and
that he would not return for months--by which time they three would be
dead--dead as Orellano's soldier--starved to death in the very midst of
the gold they had endured so much to gain.
And then Amos Baverstock set forward, laughing loudly, with his heavy
burden on his back, and a heavier burden still upon his soul. He went
alone into the woods, whilst the daylight faded and the shadows flooded
the undergrowth; and his loud, mad laughter scared the monkeys and the
birds amid the tree-tops; even the jaguar slunk away in fear at the
sound of that unholy mirth. The very Wild was filled with terror--all
save the great and stealthy snake that lay coiled in silence in the cool
woodland pool, more evil even than Amos, more strong than all his seven
devils, more cruel than Death itself.