Treasure of Kings

And the next day I continued on my way, following the course of the Brook of Scarlet Pebbles. I noticed that these pebbles were now larger than before, and were so deep red in the shadow under the trees that the clear water had the look of blood. Then I came to the pool, and thought at first that the brook was come to an end.

There were no pebbles here, but mud; and in my eagerness I waded in, to be made at once painfully conscious of a tingling sensation in my legs. Now and again something touched me-something quick and slimy; and each time I received a shock. I had forgotten, for the moment, all about the electric eels; but, when I remembered it, I was more pleased than startled, for I knew that, so far, I was on the right track and that the map could be relied upon.

All about the pool was dense and tangled underwood, the branches of which dipped here and there into the water. And there were also water plants, some with flat, floating leaves, others tall reeds with plume-like heads.

I knew that this pool was not the termination of the brook; and yet, though I searched for a long time, I could find no continuation of the stream, until an idea occurred to me which at once solved the problem. I plucked the little down-like feathers from one of my blow-pipe darts. And these, at intervals of a few yards, I dropped upon the surface of the water, all around the bank of the pool, until I found the stream itself, flowing through a dense clump of thickets.

Through this I broke my way, and as I did so, I remembered the anaconda, and was filled with my old fear of snakes. It was plain already that my surmise had been wrong. The brook did not flow underground, but, for about a hundred yards or so, through a dark and narrow tunnel, formed of low-growing creepers.

So dense were these that I was obliged to break my way, almost every inch; and, though my skin was now near as hard as leather, I was scratched so badly by the thorn-trees that I was bleeding from a score of places upon my chest and shoulders, when I came forth once more into the half-light of the woods.

I could not see at first, for my eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness, and I found myself in an open glade, where the trees were thin and the rays of the sun no more than broken by the leaves above me.

Then I looked, and I saw the brook before me, here flowing straight upon a rocky bed. Indeed, there were rocks everywhere, with rich soil between them, in which were growing many strange and beautiful plants. It was a natural rock-garden, far more wonderful to see than any yet designed by man. The rocks were of dark-red granite, and the flowers there in bloom were all the colours of the rainbow. But I looked not once at them. I gazed, like one hypnotised, upon a great stone to my right; for I had seen at once that this stone was the very shape and image of a fish.

How it stood there I cannot say, for, like the famous toadstone at Tunbridge Wells, which I myself had seen when my mother took me there in childhood, it looked as if it would topple over. For the fish, as fishes are, was big in the head and narrow in the tail; and he stood forth from the ground at an angle of about sixty degrees, and his mouth was open, and there was a hole-on my side, at any rate-near where his eye should be.

The more I looked at it, the more wonderful I thought it. It might have been graven by the hand of man, and cleverly at that; save that this fish was devoid of fins, and the semblance, as I afterwards discovered, was not so striking from any other point of view.

Stepping from the water, I scrambled over the rocks, where I sat me down, and heaved a great sigh, which I do not pretend to be able to explain. Relief, joy, victory-all were mixed up in it, I do not doubt. Here was I, at the end of all my travels; I had reached the conclusion of my journey. The Big Fish was there.

To achieve anything is a conquest, great or small. I had sojourned in the wilderness, it seemed, for years; I had stood in constant peril of my life; I had journeyed in company of cut-throats; I had lived with savage men; I had seen something of the glories of old Peru, the Temple of Cahazaxa; I had marched for days and days alone, naked and carrying my Indian blow-pipe in my hand. And there was the Big Fish-the very sign-post, as one might call it, to the Greater Treasure of the Incas.

And as these thoughts jangled in my brain, a shot rang out-how far away I could not tell, but somewhere in the Wood.

CHAPTER XVII-THE GREATER TREASURE

I held my breath and listened, thinking that I would hear other shots, as I had done before. But no sound came to break the stillness. Save for the birds among the tops of the trees, and a big, solitary monkey that swung himself from branch to branch, chattering as he went, I was surrounded by the silence of the woods.

It was no news to me that I stood in the gravest peril. Such had been the case for many a day; and-as I have said-I had come to look upon life as of little worth. Amos I knew to be somewhere in the neighbourhood; and I knew also that if he found me it would go ill with me; I should not live for long if I fell again into that great villain's clutches.

And yet I did no more than shrug my shoulders. I had sublime faith in myself, in my youth, and the Divine Providence that, so far, had kept me from the way of harm. I had my blow-pipe, too; and, if the worst should happen, I could use it well enough to drive one of my feathered arrows straight into the heart of Amos Baverstock.

One learns, in the everlasting twilight of the woods, where danger lurks on every hand, to live for the moment only, to let the future look after itself. And so did I now; for Amos was no more to me than the jaguar and the anaconda-brutes of prey, all three of them, and the mortal man the vilest. Death in many forms and shapes was all about me-sharp fangs, the serpent's coils, poison, and disease. There was no need to scent from afar such dangers as might never come my way.

And so, once again, I turned my thoughts to the Red Fish, standing forth before me in the sunlight-a quaint and humorous-looking thing, had I been able for a moment to forget its wonderful significance.

I sat and looked at it; it may have been for half an hour, or even more. And my memory took me back to that sunny August morning by the Sussex shore, where I had first heard Amos speak of the Greater Treasure of the Incas; and I remembered, word for word, what he had said: "Gold! It is there knee-deep in a cavern, large as a cathedral." And here was I, Dick Treadgold, in the very place myself, after a series of most strange and unbelievable adventures, thousands of miles from Sussex. My very name, I thought, was to prove a kind of analogue with my destiny and actions; for I was fated, so it seemed, to tread on gold.

And at that, I pulled out my fragment of the map, and looked at it, reading again and again the passage that had puzzled me so often:

"The tail of the Fish. A blow-pipe from the nose of the Fish. Twenty yards across the Brook. Three feet, below the ground-a Ring."

There, sure enough, was the tail of the Fish-or, at least, the upper part of it, a sharp spur of rock protruding from the ground. I got to my feet and approached, taking my blow-pipe with me.

"A blow-pipe from the nose of the Fish." That clause had always puzzled me. It seemed possible that I should use my blow-pipe as a kind of measuring-rod; but I could not think in what direction I should place it. Besides, the nose of the Fish was at least six feet from the ground. And then I observed for the first time what I had not perceived before; namely, that the body of the Fish was curved; and it was this that gave me the very clue I wanted. What if I were to use the blow-pipe as a plumb-line?

At all events, I would try. So I drove the blow-pipe into the soft ground, as near the perpendicular as I could judge, in such a manner that it just touched the tip of the Fish's nose.

I read my instructions again-though I already knew them by heart, and tried to guess their meaning. I crossed the brook, which in that place was very shallow, the water reaching little above my ankles; and no sooner did I find myself upon the other side than I observed that my wooden blow-pipe and the sharp, upright spur of rock that formed the Fish's tail were in the same alignment.

"Twenty yards across the Brook" could have but a single meaning. Since the Red Fish itself was not that distance from the water, twenty yards must be measured upon the other side; and this I at once resolved to do.

I already had an imaginary line, extending an indefinite distance. If I held to this line-or if, in other words, I kept my blow-pipe immediately between myself and the Fish's tail-I could not go far wrong by stepping the prescribed twenty yards from the margin of the brook.

This I did, and, to verify my position, looked to see that I still had my two fixed points in line with one another. I had verged a little to the left, but soon put this right by taking a short pace in the other direction. And then I repeated to myself the last sentence of my instructions: "Three feet, below the ground-a Ring."

Down I went upon all-fours, and began to scrape up the earth in my hands. For the soil was soft, though now and again I hit upon a rock, which, without great difficulty, I loosened with my knife, to cast aside and continue with my work.

It was nightfall by the time that I had gained a depth of three feet or more; but, by then, I had come upon a great, smooth slab of stone; and this discovery set my heart so wildly beating that I was obliged to leave my task and rest awhile, drinking deeply of the water of the brook.

In the moonlight I laboured still, and a slow business it was, displacing the earth a handful at a time, and scratching with the Indian knife that Atupo, the priest, had given me. I was hot and weary, and my finger-tips were painful; and yet I could not desist, but worked on till midnight, to be at last rewarded. I came across a metal ring, fastened to the slab, about eight inches in diameter. And when I had washed the earth away, bringing water in my quiver from the brook, I discovered that this ring was made of gold.

I tugged at it and pulled with all my might, but could not move the stone an inch; so back I went to my work again, grubbing with my hands, for all the world like a dog that smells a rat. Sheer fatigue at length quite overcame me, and I was obliged to lie down and rest, and fell sound asleep, though I had intended no such thing.

I awoke suddenly, at the first sign of daybreak, and went to the great hole I had made in the ground, and wondered at myself that I had done so much. The stone slab, I saw, was almost clear of earth.

In less than an hour the great slab was free. I cut round the edges of it with my knife, to loosen it, and then looked down upon my work, to see how I might approach the conclusion of my task with the greatest prospect of success.

The stone slab was about three feet wide and twice as long. And the gold ring, I could not fail to notice, was much nearer one end than the other. As the handle is never to be found in the middle of a door, this seemed to suggest that the slab opened upon hinges. It remained to be seen, however, whether or not I had the strength to lift it.

I tried more than once, and failed, though I moved the stone an inch or so. Finally, I went into the Wood and cut a length of liana, one end of which I tied to the golden ring. And then I tugged with all my might; and the stone slab uprose like a derrick on a ship, attained a vertical position, and there remained stationary and upright.

I stepped to the hole and looked down upon a narrow flight of steps all covered with the earth that had fallen from above. Down these I hastened, presently to find myself in utter darkness, so that there was nothing for it but for me to return and look about me for some means of making a torch.

I was now as skilled as any forest Indian in the art of making fire. For months I had journeyed without matches, tinder-box or magnifying-glass. I knew where to find touch-wood in the forest, and could strike sparks from pieces of flint. For an hour I laboured in the making of a torch, which I constructed of touchwood bound about by reeds. And whilst I was thus employed I realised for the first time how hungry I was-for I had eaten nothing for twenty-four hours, though I had consumed great quantities of water.

And now I did a strange thing, in view of the fact that I have always been somewhat impetuous by nature and was then but a boy in years. Though I was actually trembling with excitement, all eagerness to behold the interior of the vault that I knew to be at the foot of the steps, I went deliberately into the jungle in search of food.

Finding no living thing that I could kill but monkeys, I was obliged to content myself with wild nuts and berries; and then I returned to the Red Fish, drank again from the brook, took up my torch and lit it from the fire that I had kindled. And then down I went into the vault, to feast my eyes upon the buried Treasure of the Incas.

The stairway was at first so shallow that I must stoop as I descended; but presently I found myself in a little chamber, hollowed out of the living rock, the walls of which were of the same red granite as the strange stone above. And weird and almost magic did the whole place look in the light of my burning torch.

For the very walls sparkled as with diamonds. Everywhere were little grains of felspar, mica, or quartz, which caught the reflection of the light. And when I looked upon the floor I saw that Amos had been right. I trod upon bars of gold, all of the same length and size, and laid with such regularity and neatness that they might have been the palings of a fence-or many fences-spread flat upon the ground.

How deep these ingots went I could not say, and was not then disposed to inquire, for my attention was attracted by an arched opening, like the doorway of a church, on the other side of the room. Through this I passed, and found myself at the head of another flight of stone steps, much broader and wider than the others-a gigantic stairway that descended into the middle of a chamber so vast that my torch did no more than throw a kind of halo all around me.

I rushed down these steps with a loud, glad cry, and below I hastened like a madman, here and there, passing along the walls, crossing at random that wide, gloomy subterranean room.

Everywhere was gold, stacked upon the floor, piled against the walls. I saw golden chalices and cups, bracelets, rings and girdles; great jugs of gold and golden basins, besides bars and ingots that one might have counted by the thousand.

I know not why it was, but the very sight of it made me dizzy, as I staggered blindly about that wondrous place. At times I slipped and stumbled, and at other times I fell between those glittering stacks, to find myself-as Amos Baverstock had said in my hearing-knee-deep in the very stuff that has made the world as wicked as it is.

And then, at last, I sat down upon I know not what, save that it was gold. The very sight that I had seen had exhausted me far more than all my travels and privations. I felt sick at heart and weary. I looked about me with tired and dreamy eyes.

It seemed to me strange-now that I had beheld this wonder-that I had endured so much for sake of it. How had it come to pass that men prized so highly what after all is no more than yellow metal? Here was enough of it, in very truth, to serve the needs of a nation; and here it had lain for four hundred years-and the world was none the worse. How little of this vast treasure would be enough for me, or even Amos Baverstock, in spite of all his greed!

It frightened me-and that is the truth of it. I could not think what I should do if all this precious wealth were mine. And then I wondered if I had any right to call it mine just because it was mine for the moment to gaze upon, to regard in breathless bewilderment and fear.

You may behold that which you never own, as you may own that which you never see. Boy though I was, so much was clear to me as daylight. Nor had I any reason to suppose that I was the first to look upon this marvel, since the fugitives from Cuzco, centuries ago, had carried it across the mountains to hide it in this secret place. John Bannister himself, perhaps, had looked upon it, though he had never told me so. If it belonged to any living man, all this wealth was his.

I felt by now as if I were about to faint; and besides, my torch was burning low. And therefore I got unsteadily upon my feet and walked into the little outer room, and thence ascended the steps in the broad light of day. And there I stood breathing deeply, with my eyes closed and my mouth parched as if by thirst.

On a sudden I cast my burning torch into the brook before me, and fell upon my knees and prayed to God. I prayed aloud, as if the living trees and running water and the red stones about me could all hear my prayer. And it was the Lord's Prayer that I had learned at my mother's knee; for, boy though I was, I felt that which I had looked upon was the very pith and kernel of all temptation to which, since Eden, humanity was heir.

CHAPTER XVIII-I FALL IN WITH A FRIEND

I sat for many hours that morning, idle and oppressed by a feeling as of emptiness. What use to me was all the wealth that I had seen-or, for the matter of that, to any one? I had no means at my disposal to take a millionth part of it away.

And then I remembered Amos, and thought it my duty to take what steps I could to see that that dread man should never solve the riddle of the Red Fish, though it was unlikely he would find the place without the aid of my fragment of the map.

The sight of all that gold had, as it were, unnerved me-filled me with a kind of weariness of life. I cannot say exactly how it was, but I know that I had lost, on a sudden, all my energy and enthusiasm; and it was late in the afternoon before I bestirred myself and got to work.

I lowered the great slab and covered it with earth, which I trampled down with my bare feet. Then I went into the woods and dug up plants with my Indian knife, and these I stuck in the ground so that I made a little garden. One shower of tropic rain and they would take root and grow, and thus hide all trace of how the soil had been disturbed. And looking up at the sky, where it was visible here and there between the branches of the trees above me, I saw that such a shower was coming.

The rain fell that evening, when I was camped once more in the woods towards the east, having gone back the way that I had come, following the course of the Brook of Scarlet Pebbles. I took shelter from the rain beneath a tree, the great leaves of which formed a veritable roof above me, so that not one drop of water fell upon the fire that I had kindled.

I ate my simple meal, and then lay down, not to sleep, but to think and to listen to the rain, beating with a noise like many drums upon the leaves.

Well, I had seen the Treasure of the Incas. With my own eyes I had beheld it. And I asked myself if I were any the better for it, and could not see that I was. For gold is mud, and part of man is mud; and yet there is a great God who is above, around and within us all. And that night, as I lay awake in the woods, listening to the drumming of the rain, I tried to think out such problems as man has not yet begun to understand-problems that, perhaps, he may never solve on this side of the grave.

No doubt, the constant propinquity of danger had made me serious for my years. I had lived for many months in the wilderness, and my pulse now beat in rhythm with the earth. The forest, the majestic mountains I had seen at sunrise, the sky of stars above the plain-all these were mysteries to me, wondrous and eternal. But there was neither eternity nor mystery in the work of man; in gold, in the rusted sword of Orellano's soldier, or Cahazaxa's Temple.

I saw quite clearly now that this hidden treasure was no affair of mine. I had lived happily for months as Nature meant me to, and the sum total of my wealth had been my blow-pipe and the knife that Atupo, the priest, had given me. I now understood-far better than I had done at the time-all John Bannister had told me of his dread of cities and of people. I, too, would like to live my life far from the abodes of men, with the little shy things as my friends, in the chamber of the Wild. For the very sight of the Treasure of Kings had frightened me. Four hundred years it had lain there, beneath the ground, like a great, harmful dragon; and it seemed to me that to let this monster loose upon the world would be a bold thing to do-to saddle my conscience with a load of responsibility such as I was never strong enough to bear. I wished now that I was not one of the few who had solved this precious riddle.

And yet I was not sure of anything, for the gold tempted me sorely. I was tempted more than I can say. If I had now learned to understand something of John Bannister's ideals, I saw also, with alarming clarity, the motives that swayed the deeds of Amos Baverstock. Gold to him was a living force, the origin of all his strength and evil, the prompter of his actions. Once or twice that night was I tempted to return to the Red Fish that I might feast my eyes again upon the Treasure.

I told myself that I had not seen enough of it. I was like a drunkard who had tasted wine. I wondered what worth it had in coinage that I knew, and I set to thinking how I would spend so vast a sum.

But these were thoughts only of the night-time, in the darkness and the silence of the woods. I fell asleep at last, sick at heart and wretched; but dawning day came to me with comfort, and I continued on my journey with new hopes and prospects.

The dragon was behind my back, buried once again. For all I cared, it might lie there for ever, untouched by mortal hand, unseen by mortal eye, to be smothered in the dust of endless ages.

As for myself, when I came forth from the undergrowth of the wood into the warm light of the evening sun, I turned to the south, and continued on my way until long after dark. I had made up my mind, and that was something; I would pass round the Wood of the Red Fish, and journey westward towards the great mountains. These I would cross, and come down upon the tableland beyond, where I knew that I would find men who were as civilised as I. Thence, as best I could, I must find my way back to England. I had little doubt that I might be able to work a passage for myself on board a ship that sailed from Callao or Guayaquil.

But I was a fool to think my adventures so nearly at an end. My destiny was no more in my own hands than that of a withered leaf, carried here and there by the wind.

I found the western side of the Wood to be very different from the other. It was a country broken up by rocky spurs that descended from the foothills just above me; and the ravines or little valleys that lay between these spurs were densely choked with undergrowth, similar in all respects to the thickets in the wood.

It was no easy travelling, and yet there was no other road for me to take, for to the north lay the big morass that I had observed from the hill-top on the morning when I first looked down upon the Wood.

So I made my way along the crestline of a rocky ridge, setting forth upon my journey to the Andes early in the morning with the whole day before me. Though the rays of the sun were powerful, the day was cool, for a soft breeze was blowing from the mountains. I had not yet breakfasted, since I thought it likely that in this more open country I might kill with my blow-pipe some animal that was good to eat; and, therefore, as I marched upon the way, I kept my eyes open, looking into the ravines on either side of me, to see if I could catch a glimpse of any living thing. And I had not gone far before-to my bewilderment-I set eyes upon the solitary figure of a man.

I dropped, on the instant, flat upon my face-for I was now a savage in more ways than one. I had all the instincts of the wild man who knows that danger may lurk behind every tree and shrub and rock. I lay upon the ground, still as a lizard, with my eyes upon the stranger. And the more I looked at him the more I wondered.

The Forest Indians were small in stature, as I have observed in the proper place. But this man was six feet in height. He was as brown as I; and yet he wore clothes-clothes which were all in rags and tatters, and a pair of boots, split open at the toe-caps and bound with string about his ankles. Moreover, he carried in his hand a rifle; and this rifle he used as a staff, placing the butt upon the ground and leaning with his whole weight upon it as he limped slowly and painfully upon his way down the ravine immediately beneath me.