CHAPTER XVI--I FIND THE "BIG FISH"

For a considerable time I had regarded this small piece of parchment in the light of a mystery, a species of conjuring trick, just as one regards the billiard-ball, the rabbit, or the eggs that a conjuror produces from the upturned sleeve of his shirt. But now I saw quite clearly that the thing had an intrinsic value, a significance of its own; it bore a certain definite message--a message that most nearly concerned myself.

Eagerly, with hands that trembled somewhat, I studied the map. It will be remembered that the portion which Amos possessed had been torn across the place where was marked the Temple of Cahazaxa. Upon the fragment that had come into my hands by so strange and mysterious a chance, I was able to trace the route that I myself had taken from the temple ruins to the Wood of the Red Fish. The ravine was shown, and that wonderful suspension-bridge that had so amazed me when I saw it. From the hills to the east--from the crestline of which I bad viewed the distant glory of the Andes--a track was marked, leading towards the south; whereas I, in hot haste at the time, had continued upon my way due westward.

Now, this track was shown to lead to a certain stream that came forth from the Wood of the Red Fish upon the south. And it was called the Brook of Scarlet Pebbles, an Indian name being thus translated in red ink in the handwriting of John Bannister.

The map had been drawn to no scale. Like many ancient and mediaeval doc.u.ments, it was entirely without proportion or perspective. For instance, the Wood itself--which was never more than fifteen miles across--appeared to be of area equal to that vast tract of country that lay between the great mountain to the north of the forest and the Temple of Cahazaxa--a journey that had taken us many weeks.

There was some sense in this; for in regard to the Wood of the Red Fish, where the Treasure itself was hidden, it was necessary to be precise, if the map were to be of any value. I saw that one must follow the Brook of Scarlet Pebbles, until it entered a pool, where Bannister had written the words: "Electric Eels." There, it appeared, the stream flowed underground, for its course was dotted, and these dots ended at a cross, bearing the words: "THE RED FISH IS HERE."

This cross referred, as I could see at a glance, to certain marginal notes, written in such minute handwriting that it was all that I could do to read them, especially in view of the fact that Bannister's red ink had faded. At last, however, I managed to make out the following inscription:

"_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._"

This I read to myself over and over again. At one moment I thought it clear enough, and at the next, too vague. At all events, thought I, I will find out when I get there, for thither I intended to go.

I could not sleep that night, and I will not go so far as to say that I tried to. I was so thrilled and mystified that my thoughts were running riot; and surely there is little to wonder at in this. The bones of the Spanish warrior lay in the ground beneath me, together with his armour and his sword, for I had put back the tombstone in its place and covered it again with a thin layer of soil. That brave adventurer slept in tranquillity in the silent chamber of the heart of the tropic jungle.

He and the sword I have little doubt he had wielded with such subtlety and skill were now alike at rest. His treasure-hunt, at least, was ended; but mine was only just begun.

For I was determined to set forward when the daylight came, to search for the Brook of Scarlet Pebbles. If I found the margin of the Wood, and followed this towards the south, I must sooner or later hit upon the stream--if the map had any claim to accuracy. I could then follow the brook, until eventually I found the Red Fish itself; and, if I could not then a.s.sociate any definite meaning with the queer, disjointed words in the margin of the map, my own intelligence must alone be held to blame.

One of the reasons why I could not sleep was that I had committed these words to memory and kept repeating them to myself, just like a parrot, without any idea as to their meaning. That they had a meaning I never doubted, for John Bannister himself had written them; and though I was now grown older and had had many strange adventures of my own, I had still my ancient and profound respect for the wisdom of my hero.

I thought of him that night, but more of Amos Baverstock, whom I believed to be somewhere near at hand, upon the same quest as I. On that account, I realised that I must make haste upon the morrow. I had risked so much already, I had undergone so many hardships, that I was determined--now that I thought myself within reach of my goal--to see the business through. From the hills to the east I had looked down upon the Wood, and knew that it was not three days' march from one side to the other, though the undergrowth was thick and tangled; and therefore I knew also that the Red Fish could not be far away.

I think I slept a little in the early hours of the morning, to be awakened by the birds stirring in the trees, and the daylight streaming from above through that same gap by means of which my nightly task had been illumined by the moon. I ate such food as I had left, and then set forth towards the east, guiding my footsteps as well as I was able by the light of the rising sun.

I came, at about midday, to the eastern side of the Wood, and looked out towards the hills whither I had journeyed from the plain. Thence, I turned towards the south and, walking once again in open country, progressed at a fair pace, and never once sat down to rest, until the daylight waned. I went then into the Wood, and searched for berries that I knew were fit to eat; and when I had eaten these, I lay down beneath a great tree and immediately fell fast asleep.

The following morning, I continued my journey along the margin of the Wood. My naked body was now burned by the sun to the colour of an Indian's skin. Indeed, I am not sure that I was not even darker of complexion than the wild woodland people with whom I had lived. My hair was long, like that of a savage, for it had not been cut for months. I had a leather girdle over a shoulder from which depended an Indian quiver filled with darts. And there was something of the joy of life within me, as I swung upon my way. I had health, at least, if I wore no clothes upon my back. I felt convinced that my footsteps were leading me to the hidden Treasure of the Incas; and I tossed my blow-pipe in the air and caught it, time and again.

The joy of life was in me, and the spirit of adventure. The sun shone down upon me, and I breathed deeply of the open air; for the wind was from the east, and the rank smell of decaying vegetation--so general throughout the Wood--was no longer in my nostrils.

And, presently, I came upon the Brook of Scarlet Pebbles. The water was clear as crystal, and I went down upon my knees to drink my fill, for I was thirsty. There was no question that I had found the stream for which I had been searching, since the water flowed over a bed of little rounded stones, every one of which was in colouring some tone or tint of red. They ranged from pink to crimson; and they were all of granite, though worn as smooth as marbles.

Here was the brook that I must follow; so I turned into the Wood again, and all that day followed the course of the stream, which winded and twisted in so many directions that I wondered I had never seen it before.

That afternoon, being hungry for the taste of meat, I killed with my blow-pipe a great bird that I found sitting on a branch, blinking like an owl. I think he was some kind of bustard. At any rate, he was good to eat, when roasted, and I sat long by my camp-fire, picking his bones with my fingers. Then I pulled out my fragment of the map and looked at it.

It was manifest that I was not yet come to that part of the brook where its course was marked by means of little dots; but, knowing the full extent of the Wood, I had a good reason to suppose that I was not far from my destination. And then I read again the queer marginal instructions: _The tail of the Fish_--I must see that for myself; _a blow-pipe from the nose of the Fish_--whatever that might mean, at all events I had a blow-pipe, and a good one, too. As for the rest, I gave it up. It was a riddle that I would solve when I got there--I felt quite sure of that. I folded up the map and placed it in my quiver, the nearest thing to a pocket that I possessed.

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "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 Suss.e.x sh.o.r.e, 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, d.i.c.k Treadgold, in the very place myself, after a series of most strange and unbelievable adventures, thousands of miles from Suss.e.x. My very name, I thought, was to prove a kind of a.n.a.logue 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 pa.s.sage that had puzzled me so often:

"_The tail of the Fish. A blow-pipe from the nose of the Fish.