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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sage 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 mora.s.s 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 b.u.t.t 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.
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 b.u.t.t 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!"
[Ill.u.s.tration: ""HANDS UP!" HE CRIED. "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--d.i.c.k Treadgold."
He brought down his rifle, and stared at me like one who sees a ghost.
"d.i.c.k!" 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.
"d.i.c.k!" 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 a.s.sured 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, pa.s.sed 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.