Treasure of Kings

I have said that I had the instincts of a wild man. I was cautious, shy and cunning. I had learned to trust no one, to be suspicious of every one. And so I lay and watched him.

It occurred to me, by degrees, that I had seen him before. I could not for the life of me remember where. Then he sat down, with his face toward me.

He had a rough, weather-beaten, and yet a kindly, face. He had steel-grey eyes, and a rough, tangled beard. He was so close to me that I could see that his bare arms were tattooed; and it was this, perhaps, that gave me the clue I wanted. I looked at his beard again, and, unkempt as it was, it reminded me somehow of the beard of a Russian Czar. This man was William Rushby.

I was not sure of it at first. He was greatly changed from the honest sailor who had befriended me on board the Mary Greenfield. But when my mind was made up, and I was well-nigh carried away by mingled feelings of astonishment and gladness, I got to my feet and went towards him with my blow-pipe in my hand.

Without any ado, he whipped the butt of his rifle into the hollow of his shoulder, and I saw the sights were directed straight upon my heart.

"Hands up!" he cried to me in English. "Hands up, you brown barbarian, or else I shoot you dead!"

I grasped the truth in an instant; and it is well I did, for I have little doubt that he would have shot me where I stood. If William Rushby had changed in personal appearance since last we met, of a certainty I myself had changed still more. He took me for a wild man of the woods, though he yelled at me in English, and would have killed me out of hand, had I not lifted my arms and answered him, and laughed.

"Rushby!" I cried. "Do you not know me? It is I-Dick Treadgold."

He brought down his rifle, and stared at me like one who sees a ghost.

"Dick!" said he, and then came forward, holding out his great hand, into which I placed my own.

And there we stood, and shook hands with one another, as though we had met at Charing Cross. And he was near as naked as I, and we were both so burned by the sun that the whites of our eyes were almost comical, and our hair was long like that of gipsies, and the skin upon our legs and arms had been scratched in scores of places by the thorn-trees in the forest.

"Dick!" he cried again. "I can see it now, though I would never have believed it."

"It is I who am asked to believe the most," said I. "How came you here, of all people in the world?"

"There's a yarn at the back of that," said he. "But, first, you must tell me how you escaped from Amos."

He seated himself, as he spoke, upon a boulder that lay in the ravine; and when he moved I was reminded of a fact I had perceived already-Rushby was badly wounded and lame of a leg.

For all that, I saw that he would glean little in the way of information if we did nothing but ask one another questions; so I mastered my own curiosity, and replied to him.

"Why," I told him, "Amos tied me to a tree, and left me in the wilderness to starve. And then I fell into the hands of savage men, to whom I shall be ever grateful. From their dwellings in the forest I journeyed alone to Cahazaxa's Temple, and thence across the plain to the Wood of the Red Fish, where I find an old friend, and still believe that I am dreaming. It is months now since I last set eyes upon a white man, and that was Amos Baverstock himself."

"Months!" cried Rushby in amazement. "You've not seen Baverstock-for months!"

He looked at me as if he thought that I was lying. I was at a loss to know what he was driving at, though I assured him that I spoke the truth.

"Months!" he repeated, holding his head between his hands, as if his puzzled brains were paining him. "But we were told, two days ago, that Amos held you prisoner."

"Who told you?" I demanded.

I was now as surprised as he, and even more astonished when I heard his answer.

"Baverstock himself," said Rushby.

"Amos!" I exclaimed. "You have seen him, then?"

"He lied to me!" cried Rushby, driving his clenched fist into the palm of a hand. "He lied to me! And Bannister was right."

"Bannister!" I echoed.

But Rushby, rocking his shoulders from side to side like a man who suffers anguish, stamped a foot upon the ground.

"Oh, but I have done a fool's thing!" he cried. "I have been fooled, and I have sent John Bannister to death!"

I stood before him, speechless, gasping. Though I could make neither head nor tail of what he had told me, I could see with my eyes that the man was suffering torture in his soul. If Bannister was in danger, if it was possible to save anything from the fire, it was I myself-and I alone-who was capable of action, since Rushby was dead lame. And yet I must first know the truth of the matter, for I was wholly in the dark.

I went to Rushby and laid a hand upon his shoulder.

"Come, tell me what it all means," said I. "Tell me your story from the first."

He looked up at me, and then for the first time smiled-a sad smile, none the less.

"Sit down," he answered, in a calmer voice. "I will tell you all from the beginning, as quickly as I can."

CHAPTER XIX-THE BOATSWAIN TELLS HIS STORY

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.

CHAPTER XX-I RETURN TO THE SOLDIER'S TOMB

I had every reason to be filled with apprehension. I was going, of a certainty, into danger greater than any I had yet encountered. Whilst searching in the Wood for John Bannister, my friend, I was like as not to fall in with Amos Baverstock; and if that should happen, I could hope for little mercy.

Bannister-as Rushby had told me-was weak from illness and half starved,, so that much of his great strength of former days must have deserted him, when most he had a need of it. Besides, I knew not whether he were armed, for that was a question I had not stayed to ask when I hurried forth from the ravine upon my quest.

I had therefore some cause to be afraid. And yet, in my heart, I was glad as I had never been for months, as I raced upon my way into the darkness of the Wood.

I was journeying towards my friend, the great man whom I had learned to honour and admire upon the beach in Sussex. And I believed that the Fates would not be so cruel to me that I should fail to find him. I felt that I would soon look upon him once again, feel the iron grasp of his hand, and behold the light of recognition in his kindly eyes.

Many hours of daylight were before me, when I entered the Wood of the Red Fish; and then, for the first time I think, I realised that my task was not an easy one. Had I started from the other side of the Wood, I believe that I could have found the Spaniard's Tomb without much loss of time; for I was by now well acquainted with that portion of the jungle.

But in this neighbourhood I was an utter stranger, though I had the sun to guide me whenever I caught glimpses of the daylight between the overhanging branches of the trees. Also, I carried in my mind a very perfect recollection of the map.

I saw that it was necessary above all else to calm myself, to think the matter out, instead of plunging into the business like a bolting horse. My destination was the Spaniard's Tomb, and I was in possession of certain valuable information, the most of which was quite unknown to Amos. The Wood of the Red Fish itself was diamond-shaped, the four angles approximately directed towards the north, south, east, and west. Now, the Big Fish lay somewhere in the very centre of the Wood; and I had formerly journeyed to the place from the south, following the Brook of Scarlet Pebbles. This brook-as I had observed-flowed in a north-westerly direction, towards the morass, which I had passed at the end of the ravine in which I had just left William Rushby.

During the earlier days when I had adventured all alone, when I had discovered both the Glade of Silent Death and the Tomb of Orellano's soldier, I am convinced that I had never crossed the Brook of Scarlet Pebbles. Indeed, I could scarce have done so without noticing at once the singular character of the stream. I had become, during these months extraordinarily observant; and my attention would certainly have been attracted by the peculiar red stones with which the bed of the brook was strewn. Hence, by a simple process of deduction, I was forced to the conclusion that the Spaniard's Tomb must be somewhere in the north-westerly part of the Wood; and the reader will the better understand me if he glances at the map which I myself have made, and which he must not think a facsimile of the real parchment map whereon the Tomb was not even mentioned.

I was now, as I knew, somewhere on the southern side of the brook; and that was the wrong side, if I was to find the Tomb with as little delay as possible. Aided, therefore, by the position of the morning sun, I directed my footsteps in a northerly direction, and came early in the afternoon upon the Brook of Scarlet Pebbles, to the north of the Big Fish. Thence, I decided to journey due eastward, hoping, sooner or later, to come upon some place that I would recognise, which would inform me of my whereabouts.

Sunset overtook me when I was in the very heart of the jungle. There was just time to search for food before the darkness came; and then I lay down to rest without venturing to light a fire.

I remember well that, at the time, I was surprised that I did not find myself oppressed by the almost overwhelming sense of loneliness that hitherto had always come upon me when I journeyed by myself in the midst of the silent woods. But, now that I am old, and have thought much upon many things, I have an explanation-howbeit somewhat mystical-to account for the happiness I then experienced. I knew that I was near my friend.

I was fortified by memory. Thus it was with me. And more than that; for it looked as if I was to give a helping hand to the great strong man whom I had seen first upon the Sussex coast, who had told me of the hooded crows, and to whose tales of travel I had listened eagerly, day after day, before ever Amos Baverstock and the like of him had stepped across my path. I would find the Tomb-upon that I was determined. And I would find Bannister as well. Perhaps he was sleeping, even then, not two hundred yards away from me, in that tangled, tropic wilderness. With so pleasant a reflection I fell sound asleep, and slept until daylight wakened me and the birds and monkeys were stirring in the trees.

I walked many miles that day, looking everywhere in vain for some tree or stream that I should recognise, for the burnt-out embers of an old camp-fire or the feathers of some bird that I myself had plucked and eaten. But I found nothing, until late in the afternoon, when I came, of a sudden, upon the dried-up skin of a small woodland deer.

There also were his bones, dried and whitened, all the flesh therefrom devoured by creeping insects. And, thinking it more than likely that this was the same deer that had served me for many a meal, when I first was come into the Wood-the same poor beast that had been crushed to death by the great serpent that had lain in hiding beneath the water of the pool-I cast about me, and soon found the Glade of Silent Death. And now, I knew, I was on the right track to the Tomb, which from this place lay towards the south; for I had a first-hand knowledge of all this portion of the Wood, where I had sojourned for many days.

Then an idea came to me whereby valuable time might be saved. I was not far from the edge of the Wood, and if I could gain this before the darkness came I might travel some distance southward by night, to continue my searching in the morning. Keeping, therefore, the setting sun at my back, I journeyed eastward, and came presently to open country, when I travelled a good two miles to the south by the light of the rising moon.

Late at night I rested, sleeping till daybreak; and then, entering the Wood again, I found by chance one of my old camping-places, and following my old trail for several hours came at last-as I expected-upon the Tomb of Orellano's soldier.