We stood horror-stricken upon the bank of that dark pool--mute, impotent
spectators of a tragedy we were powerless to prevent.
Vasco, the Spaniard, stood beside me; and I heard his teeth chattering
in his head like castanets. As for Forsyth, before that gruesome
spectacle was ended he turned away with a kind of sickening sob, at the
same time passing a hand across his eyes, by which I knew that the man
was human after all. Bannister--who had soon caught us up--said
nothing, but stood rigid at the back of us, his rifle in his hands,
ready to fire so soon as an opportunity should offer. As for myself, it
was as if I was transfixed in petrified amazement. I was hypnotised by
the terror of the thing I saw, and could not look away, but must watch
the tragic business to the last.
With a great splash of water, the immense body of the snake arose from
out the middle of the pool, the surface of which forthwith became
agitated by scores of little waves, forming a series of concentric
circles, spreading outward to the bank.
We saw the glistening coils of the terrific reptile wind themselves,
swiftly and yet stealthily, around the frail body of the doomed, unhappy
Amos. He let out a piercing shriek, far more terrifying to hear than
the uncanny laughter with which he had disturbed the silence of the
woods--it was freezing in its shrillness. And at the same time he threw
both his arms above his head, so that his heavy bundle of golden ingots
fell into the water and at once disappeared from view.
He made--so far as we could see--no effort of resistance. Terror, it
seemed, had mastered every muscle, nerve, and sinew in his body. He was
paralysed by fear. We could see, in that dim, religious light, the huge
head of the snake swaying backward and forward in front of him, whilst
its long forked tongue darted swiftly in and out. We saw the man's
face, too, livid with fright, and his wide, staring eyes. For a moment
all his features worked spasmodically. I think he tried to cry out once
more; but the breath had already been driven from his slender frame by
the colossal strength of the relentless serpent that, even as we looked,
broke down the slender bulwark of his ribs.
It was then that John Bannister fired. He told me afterwards that he
meant to put Baverstock out of the torture he was suffering both of body
and of mind. If that were so, it was a lucky shot; for it killed at
once the reptile and the man.
The bullet drilled the anaconda, breaking its spine, and thence pierced
the heart of Amos Baverstock. The unhappy wretch vanished from sight
upon the instant beneath the water of the pool; but the dying struggles
of that gigantic snake were amazing to behold.
It lashed right and left, twisting all ways, writhing like a worm; so
that we, who looked on, were drenched in flying water. It made the most
frantic efforts to drag itself from the pool. The lower part of its
body seemed to be paralysed and quite useless; but at last it succeeded
in half twining itself around the trunk of a tree, where its head swayed
from side to side quite aimlessly. What surprised--and I think
horrified--us most of all was the silence of the brute.
I fired, and missed; for my hand trembled violently. And, thereby, it
was left to Bannister to end the work he had begun. With his second
shot he smashed in the reptile's head; and the great snake at last lay
motionless, as loathsome in death as it had been terrible in life. I am
ready to believe that five minutes elapsed before any one of us spake or
even moved.
"I shall never cease to dream of this," said Forsyth, in a weak voice,
at last. "No such nightmare ever was!"
I saw that he wiped a hand across his forehead; and I did the same.
Though I was splashed all over with the water from the pool, a great
sweat had broken out upon me, and I experienced, in quick succession,
alternate sensations of extreme heat and cold.
Vasco seized Bannister by an arm.
"We go away!" he cried, in broken English. "We go now! It is no good
stay here."
The man turned back into the Wood as if he would retreat by the way we
had come; but Bannister called him back.
"Not that way," said he, in Spanish. "It is but a little way from here
to the end of the Wood, and we can pass round to the north across open
country. I know a way to the south of the morass."
We were under Bannister's orders. And thankful we were that we had such
a man to follow. We knew there was an urgent need to go back to Rushby
as quickly as we might.
We were obliged to pass round the pool, and this brought us to within a
few yards of the great body of the snake.
"I never knew," said Bannister, "that such a monster could exist. He
must be over thirty feet in length. But, come; we can do nothing here."
In single file, as before, we followed him, and presently came forth
into the open air upon the skirting of the Wood.
There we regarded one another in shocked surprise; for the faces of us
all were white, and Vasco was still trembling. We said nothing; not a
word passed between us; but we all breathed deeply, like men who had
been for a long time under water.
I looked up at the blue sky and the hills in the distance, to the east,
whence I had first looked down upon the Wood of the Red Fish, after my
journey across the plain. And I remembered what I had then thought; how
I was filled with the restless spirit of adventure; how the joy of life
was strong within me, whilst I ran the danger of my life, all naked as I
was, with my Indian blow-pipe in my hand and my quiver full of arrows.
But now I had seen the very face of death. I had beheld a living
terror. The mask of Romance had been removed from the forbidding face
of Tragedy. And that Wood was now to me a dread, unholy place, wherein,
I knew, I would never dare to venture again, in spite of the great
Treasure that lay hidden in its midst.
"I would not go back," I cried to Bannister, "for all the Treasure of
the Incas, for all the treasure in the world!"
My old friend looked at me, and smiled.
"You are right," he answered. "And there never will be a need to, Dick.
As soon as we are rested, we must find our honest Rushby, and do what we
can for him."
We camped that night in the open air, a mile or so to the south of the
morass; and the following morning continued our journey, keeping the
Wood to our left.
We had not gone far before we discovered the figure of a man, who came
running towards us from the direction of the hills. I noticed that he
advanced with a peculiar limp, and on this account, for the moment, I
believed it to be Rushby, most marvellously recovered of his wound.
But when the runner had drawn quite near to us, I was surprised beyond
measure to recognise my old friend, Atupo, the Peruvian priest, whom I
had befriended in the vault beneath the Temple of Cahazaxa.
Though I called him by his name, he cast never so much as a glance at me
or any of the others, save Bannister, at whose feet he threw himself, as
pagans prostrate themselves before the idols that they worship.
"My master!" he exclaimed, and went on, in his quaint, broken English,
in some such strain as this: "I never thought to live to set eyes on you
again."
Bannister lifted him to his feet and, laying a hand affectionately upon
his shoulder, asked him what news he had of his friends and brethren,
who had fled from their dwellings before the wrath of Amos.
Atupo told him that the majority had sought refuge in the woods, where
many of their number had been treacherously murdered by the wild men. He
himself, however, had founded a small colony of some score of persons
who were living by the side of the ravine that crossed the plain, not so
far beyond the hills that we could see. All these, he said, were
anxious to return to Cahazaxa's Temple, but dared not do so, believing
Amos to be still abroad.
Bannister at once set the man's mind at rest, assuring him that it was
not only safe for them to return, but that Amos himself was dead and the
Greater Treasure undisturbed.
At that, Atupo threw up his hands by way of a gesture of delight; and
then, looking about him, for the first time recognised both Mr. Forsyth
and myself. And it is doubtful which of the two of us he was most
surprised to see.
Myself he regarded as a trusted friend; but he knew that Forsyth had
been one of Baverstock's party, and he was astounded to behold that
gentleman alive. Being told by Bannister that he had naught to fear, he
pointed straight at Forsyth.
"But that man should be dead!" he cried. "With my own eyes I saw him
shot with an arrow, the point of which was steeped in deadly poison."
And then it was that Mr. Gilbert Forsyth told us the truth, which I have
set down already: how, with a fortitude that one cannot but admire, he
had burned the poison from his flesh, and thus saved his life, though he
had fallen into a fever.
Atupo, soon afterwards, expressed himself anxious to return to his own
friends; but Bannister was one whose custom it was to look well ahead,
and he knew that the ancient Peruvians had been well skilled in
medicine.
"Friend Atupo," said he, "we have need of your assistance; for there is
one of our number who is sorely wounded. You and your comrades owe not
a little to us; and I will, therefore, ask you to go back to the Temple,
and there await our coming. Prepare such drugs as you may have for a
man who has a wound in the leg that will not heal."
"Does the sun ask the moon to shine?" inquired the Peruvian. "What of
the white man's medicines?"
Bannister threw out his hands.
"Alas!" he exclaimed. "We have none; we have used all we had."
And so the matter was settled; Atupo, the priest, returning to the
Temple, and ourselves veering round to the west, between the Wood and
the morass, towards the place where we had left William Rushby.