“Let’s go on,” I murmured, “and trust to luck.”
“You bet you!” returned the young man. “But there won’t be any luck about
it. We’ll try this.”
When the chauffeur turned around for instructions he got them in forcible
and understandable proportions. Anderson’s revolver was within six inches
of his back. The man went white.
“_A vapor!_ The boat!” ordered Anderson.
The vigor of that driver’s assent was comical. His head rocked and bobbed
with eagerness.
“_Si! Si! Madre de Dios!_” he exclaimed.
* * * * *
Several years have passed since the occurrence of the foregoing events,
and young Anderson since has married. In his nest of a home, to which I
am a frequent bachelor visitor in good standing, there is prominently
located a certain replica of a beautiful young female just budding
into womanhood. It represents the best in the art of the Ataruipe and
is regarded by the lady-of-the-house as perhaps just the least bit too
naturalistic.
Among artists and archaeologists, however, it has inspired more
controversy than anything else in the present century. The trend of
opinion is that the figure is an extravagant but exceedingly clever bit
of modern work which is being foisted on a gullible public, ever too
quick to give credence to cock-and-bull stories of lost treasure such as
Anderson and I relate.
They ask for the camera and photographs that Van Dusee had. We say that
we did not miss them until on the boat bound for New York; that they were
probably stolen from our rooms at the hotel in Rio de Janiero.
They ask us for sight of some of the marvelous jewels. We show them some
of the smaller ones, but they tell us these are ordinary and may have
been acquired any place; and at their insistence for a view of the big
gems we are compelled to advise them that the package handed us by the
clever hotel clerk was a duplicate of the one we gave him containing
the select stones brought by us from the Caverns of the Ataruipe; that
we learned that it contained common pebbles some time before the port
officials at Rio de Janiero went through our effects, confiscating
everything they could find and seeming particularly happy at discovering
the package described so minutely in their search-warrant—the one the
scoundrel hotel clerk made up in imitation of Bobby’s wrapping, which we
had been careful to restore to its original appearance after discovering
the cheat.
“Yes, but how did you save this beautiful statue if they got everything
else?” is the final thrust.
And here Anderson lapses into silence, for the matter is a delicate one.
It involved thrusting the small package into the arms of a handsome
young lady who stood in the throng that curiously watched us come
aboard the ship at the last moment under the guardianship of numbers of
Brazilian officials, who hovered over us with the eagerness of flies. As
she caught Anderson’s eye and got the idea that leaped from it, I am sure
she giggled with delight at the ruse, for she was pure American.
Once a year each of us receives a communication from Rio de Janiero that
purports to come from government officials. The letters are entirely
preposterous in their content—they read like the notorious Spanish
legacy letters so long the vogue of confidence men, and speak urgently,
earnestly—yea, almost beseechingly—of untold wealth that awaits us if
we will but come to Rio de Janiero and assist in the quest for the lost
Caverns of the Ataruipe.
But we feel, young Anderson and I, that constant and continuous
governmental search must be going forward for the immense treasure;
and we feel, further, that in all fairness to the world at large that
wonderful collection of art material should be restored to humanity; but
we find it difficult indeed to see just why two Americans—even conceding
that their help might be of value, which is doubtful—should assist a
greedy and unjust officialdom that is absolutely guilty of the death of
the best guide and friend it was ever the good fortune of either of us to
have encountered.
_Another story by JULIAN KILMAN will appear in the next issue of WEIRD
TALES. It is called “The Well,” and it’s a “creepy” yarn, warranted to
give you “goose-flesh” thrills._