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Chapter One
A Chat in a Boat
“Bother the old fish!”
“Yes; they won’t bite.”
“It’s no good, Perry; they are having their siesta. Let’s get in the shade and have one too.”
“What! in the middle of the day – go to sleep? No, thank you. I’m not a foreigner.”
“More am I; but you come and live out here for a bit, and you’ll be ready enough to do as the Romans – I mean the Spaniards – do.”
“Not I, Cyril, and I don’t believe fish do go to sleep.”
“What? Why, I’ve seen them lie in shoals here, perfectly still; basking in the hot sunshine, fast asleep.”
“With their eyes shut?”
“Gammon! Fish can’t shut their eyes.”
“Then they can’t go to sleep. – My! it is hot. I shan’t fish any more.”
Two boys sitting in a boat half a mile from the shore, and sheltered by a ridge of rocks from the tremendous swell of the vast Pacific Ocean, which to north and south curled over in great glistening billows upon the sand – in the former instance, to scoop it out, carry it back, and then throw it up farther away; in the latter, to strike upon sheer rocks and fly up in silver spray with a low deep sound as of muttered thunder. Away to the west there was the great plain of smooth damasked silver, lost at last in a faint haze, and all so bright that the eyes ached and were dazzled by its sheen. To the east, the bright-looking port of San Geronimo, with a few ships, and half-a-dozen long, black, red-funnelled screw-steamers at anchor; beyond them wharves and warehouses, and again beyond these the houses of the little town, with a few scattered white villas rising high on terrace and shelf of the steep cliffs. The place looked bright and attractive seen from the distance, but dry and barren. Nothing green rested and refreshed the eye. No trees, no verdant slope of lawn or field; nothing but sand in front, glittering rock behind. Everything suggested its being a region where no rain fell.
But, all the same, it had its beauty. More, its grandeur, for apparently close at hand, though miles away in the clear distance, rose the great Sierra – the mighty range of mountains, next to the Himalayas the highest in the world – and seeming to rise suddenly like a gigantic wall right up into the deep blue sky, cloudless, and dazzling with the ice and snow.
The two boys, both of them, though fair by nature, tanned now of a warm reddish brown, were of about the same age, and nearly the same physique; and as now they twisted the stout lines they had been holding round the thole pins of the boat, which softly rose and fell with a pleasant lulling motion, the first who had spoken unfastened the neck-button of his shirt.
“Hullo! Going to bathe?”
“Bathe! No, thankye. I should wake up the sharks: they’d bite then.”
“Ugh!”
“Yes, you may shudder. They grow fine about here. Why, before I’d made a dozen strokes, you’d hear me squeak, and see me go down and never come up again.”
“How horrid! You don’t mean it, though, do you?”
“Yes, it’s true enough. I’m going to have a nap.”
As the boy spoke, he lay back in the stern of the boat, and placed his broad Panama hat over his face.
“I say, Perry, old chap!” he continued, with his voice sounding whistly through the closely-woven hat.
“What?”
“If you smell me burning, wake me up.”
“All right,” said the lad addressed as Perry; and resting his elbows on his knees, he sat gazing up at the huge towering mountain nearest at hand for a few minutes, then:
“Cil!”
“Hullo!” drowsily.
“Don’t go to sleep, old chap; I want to talk to you.”
“I can’t go to sleep if you talk. What is it?”
“I say, how rum it seems for it to be boiling hot down here, and all that ice and snow to be up there. Look.”
“Yes,” said Cyril, “’tis its nature to. I don’t want to look. Seen it before.”
“But how far is it up to where the snow is – a thousand feet?”
“What?” cried Cyril, starting up into a sitting position, with his hat falling off.
“I said how far is it up to where the snow is?”
“I know you did,” cried the boy, laughing, “and you said, was it a thousand feet?”
“Yes, and it was stupid of me. It must be twice as high.”
“Perry Campion, you are a greenhorn. I say: no offence meant; but my dear, fresh, innocent, young friend, that snow is three miles high.”
“Well, I know that, of course. It must be much more to where it is.”
“Sixty or seventy,” said Cyril, whose drowsiness had departed, and who was now all life and eagerness. “The air’s so clear here that it’s horribly deceiving. But I didn’t mean that: I meant that the snow’s quite three miles straight up perpendicular in the air.”
“Nonsense!”
“But I tell you it is. If you were to rise straight up in a balloon from here, you’d have to go up three miles to get on a level with the snow.”
Perry Campion looked fixedly at his companion, but there was no flinching.
“I’m not gammoning you,” said Cyril earnestly. “Things are so much bigger out here than they look.”
“Then how big – how high is that mountain?” said Perry.
“Nearly four miles.”
“But it seems to be impossible.”
“It isn’t, though,” said Cyril. “That one’s over twenty thousand feet high, and father has seen much bigger ones up to the north. I say, squire, you’ve got some climbing to do. You won’t hop over those hills very easily.”
“No,” said Perry thoughtfully. “It will be a climb.”
“I say: whereabouts are you going?”
“I don’t know. Right up in the mountains somewhere.”
“But what are you going for?”
“I don’t know that either. To travel, I suppose.”
“Oh, but the colonel must be going for something,” cried Cyril. “I believe I know.”
“Do you? What?”
“Well, you don’t want me to tell you. I suppose the colonel has told you not to tell anybody.”
“No,” said Perry quickly. “He has not told me. Why do you think he’s going?”
“Prospecting. To search out a good place for a mine.”
Perry looked at him eagerly.
“The Andes are full of places where there might be mines. There’s gold, and silver, and quicksilver, and precious stones. Lots of treasures never been found yet.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that there are plenty of minerals,” said Perry thoughtfully.
“And besides,” said Cyril, grinning, “there’s all the gold and silver that belonged to the Incas. The Indians buried it, and they have handed down the secret of the different places to their children.”
“Who have dug it up and spent it,” said Perry.
“No. They’re too religious. They dare not. They keep the secret of the places till the Incas come again to claim their country, and then it will all be dug up, golden wheels, and suns, and flowers, and cups, and things that the Spaniards never found. That’s it; your father’s going after the treasures. But if he is, you’d better look out.”
“Why?”
“Because if the Indians thought you were after that, they’d kill you in no time.”
Perry looked at him searchingly.
“Oh, I mean it,” said Cyril. “Father has often talked about it, and he says that the Indians consider it a religious duty to protect the hiding-places of these treasures. There was a man took a party with him up into the mountains on purpose to search for them.”
“Well? Did he find anything?”
“Don’t know. Nobody ever did know.”
“How was that?”
“He never came back. Nor any of his people.”
“Why? What became of them?”
“I tell you they went up into the mountains and never came back. The Indians know what became of them.”
“But was no search made for them – no examination made of the Indians?” cried Perry, looking aghast.
“Search! Where? Indians! What Indians?” said Cyril sharply. “You forget how big the place is, and what great forests and wilds there are over the other side.”
“But it sounds so horrible for a party like that to disappear, and no more to be heard of them,” said Perry.
“Yes, but the Indians are savages, and, as father said, they think they are doing their duty against people who have no right in the country, so your father will have to look out. I wish I were going with you, all the same.”
“You’re safer in San Geronimo, if it’s as bad as you say,” cried Perry.
“Oh, it’s bad enough, but I shouldn’t mind.”
There was silence for a few minutes, during which time both lads sat gazing dreamily up at the vast range of mountains before them, with its glittering peaks, dark cavernous valleys, and mysterious shades, towards where the high tablelands lay which had been the seat and home of the barbaric civilisation of the Incas, before ruin and destruction came in the train of the Spanish adventurers who swept the land in search for El Dorado, the City of Gold.
Perry Campion was the first to break the silence.
“How long have you been out here, Cyril? – Cil, I say, I shall call you Cil.”
“All right, I don’t mind, only it won’t be for long. You go next week, don’t you?”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said Perry, glancing again at the mountains.
“Wish I were going with you. What did you say? – how long have I been out here? Nearly four years. Father sent me over to England to be educated when I was six, and I was at a big school at Worksop till I was twelve, and then he sent for me to come out here again.”
“Weren’t you glad?”
“Of course. It was very jolly at school; but school isn’t home, is it?”
“Of course not.”
“Father said I could go on reading with him, and it would brush up his classics, which had grown rusty since he turned merchant.”
“Wasn’t he always a merchant, then?”
“My father?” cried Cyril. “No, he was a captain in the army, and had to give up on account of his health. The doctors said he was dying. That was twelve years ago; but he doesn’t look like dying now, does he?”
“No, he looks wonderfully strong and well.”
“Yes. This place suited him and mother because it was so dry.”
“And then he took to being a merchant?”
“Yes; and ships off drugs, and minerals, and guano, and bark.”
“What! for tanning?”
“Tanning! Ha! ha! No, no; Peruvian bark, that they make quinine of. Physic for fevers.”
“Oh! I see.”
“It’s very jolly, and he makes plenty of money; but I do get so tired sometimes. I should like to go to sea, or to travel, or something. I hate being always either at studies or keeping accounts. I wish I were going along with you.”
“To be killed by the Indians,” said Perry drily.
“I should like to catch ’em at it,” cried Cyril. “But I’d risk it. What an adventure, to go with your father to hunt out the places where the Indians buried the Incas’ gold!”
“My father did not say he was going in search of that,” said Perry.
“No; he’s too close. But that’s it, safe enough; you see if it isn’t. Only think of it – right up in the grand valleys, where it’s almost dark at mid-day, and you walk along shelves over the torrents where there isn’t room for two mules to pass, and there are storms that are quite awful sometimes. I say, I’d give anything to go.”
“I wish you were going, Cil.”
“You do?” cried the boy excitedly. “I say: do you mean that?”
“Of course I do,” said Perry, looking amused at his companion’s eagerness. “We’ve got on right enough together since we have been staying at your house.”
“Got on? I should think we have,” cried Cyril. “Why, it has been no end of a treat to me for you to be at our place. I can’t get on very well with the half-Spanish chaps about here. They’re gentlemen, of course, with tremendously grand descents from Don this and Don that; but they’re not English boys, and you can’t make English boys of them.”
“Of course not.”
“Ah, you may laugh,” continued Cyril, “but would you believe it? I tried to get up a cricket club, and took no end of pains to show them the game, and they all laughed at it, and said I must be half mad. That’s being Spanish, that is! It’s no wonder their country’s left all behind.”
“Then the cricket was a failure?” said Perry.
“Failure? It ended in a fight, and I went home and burned the stumps, bats, and balls.”
“What a pity!” cried Perry.
“That’s what father said, and it did seem too bad, after he’d had the tackle brought out from England on purpose. I was sorry afterwards; but I was so jolly wild then, I couldn’t help it.”
“How came there to be a fight?” said Perry after a pause, during which he watched the frank, handsome face of his companion, who was looking at the great peak again.
“Oh, it was all about nothing. These Spanish chaps are so cocky and bumptious, and ready to take everything as being meant as an insult. Little stupid things, too, which an English boy wouldn’t notice. I was bowling one evening, and young Mariniaz was batting. Of course he’d got his bat and his wits, and he ought to have taken care of himself. I never thought of hitting him, but I sent in a shooter that would have taken off the bail on his side, and instead of blocking it, he stepped right before the wicket.”
“What for?” said Perry.
“Ah, that’s more than I know,” said Cyril; “and the next moment he caught it right in the centre of his – er – middle.”
“Ha! ha!” laughed Perry merrily.
“It knocked all the wind out of him for a minute, and then, as soon as he could speak, he was furious, and said I did it on purpose – in Spanish – and I said it was an accident that all people were liable to in cricket, and that they ought to be able to defend themselves. Then he said he was able to defend himself.”
“That meant fighting,” cried Perry, growing more interested.
“Of course it did, but I wasn’t going to notice it, for the mater said I was to be very careful not to get into any quarrel with the Spanish fellows, because they are none too friendly about my father being here. They’re jealous because he’s a foreigner, when all the time there isn’t a more splendid fellow living than my father,” cried the boy warmly. “You don’t half know him yet.”
“Well, what happened then?” said Perry, as he noted the warm glow in the boy’s cheeks and the flash of his eyes.
“Oh, Mariniaz appealed to three or four of the others, and they sided with him, and said that they saw me take a long breath and gather myself up and take a deadly aim at his chest, and then hurl the ball with all my might, as if I meant to kill him.”
“What rubbish!” cried Perry.
“Wasn’t it? You couldn’t teach chaps like that to play cricket, could you?”
“Of course not. They didn’t want to learn.”
“That was it; and they egged Mariniaz on till he called me an English beast, and that upset me and made my tongue loose.”
“Well?”
“He said he knew from the first I had a spite against him, and had been trying to knock him over with the ball; and, feeling what a lie it was, I grew pepper, and told him it wasn’t the first time an English ball had knocked over a Spaniard, for I got thinking about our old chaps playing bowls when the news came about the Armada.”
“Yes?” cried Perry, for Cyril had stopped.
“Well, then, he turned more yellow than usual, and he gave me a backhanded smack across the face.”
“And what did you do?” cried Perry hotly, for the boy once more stopped.
“Oh, I went mad for a bit.”
“You – went mad?”
“I suppose so. My mother said I must have been mad, so I expect I was.”
“But you don’t tell me,” cried Perry impatiently. “What did you do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do: tell me.”
“I can’t recollect, and I never could. I only know I turned very hot and saw sparks, and that there was a regular banging about, and sometimes I was up and sometimes I was down; and then all at once I was standing there, with Mariniaz lying on the ground crying, and with his nose bleeding. Another chap was sitting holding his handkerchief to one eye, and two more were being held up by some of the players, who were giving one of them some water to drink, while the other was showing them a tooth which he held in his fingers.”
“Then you’d whacked four of them?” cried Perry excitedly.
“I don’t know,” said Cyril, with his face screwed up. “I suppose I had been knocking them about a bit, and they wouldn’t fight any more. They all said I was an English savage, and that I ought to be sent out of the place; and then I began to get a bit cooler, and felt sorry I had knocked them all about so much.”
“I don’t see why you should,” cried Perry.
“But I did. It made such an upset. There was no end of a bother. My mother cried about it when I went home, and said I should never look myself again; and when my father came home and saw me with bits of sticking plaster all over my face and knuckles, he was in a regular passion, for he had been hearing about it in the town, and had words with the other boys’ fathers. Then he made me tell him all about it from the beginning, sitting back, looking as fierce and stern as could be, till I had done; and I finished off by saying, ‘What would you have done if you had been me?’
“‘Just the same as you did, Cil, my boy,’ he cried, shaking hands; and then my mother looked astonished, and he sat back in his chair and laughed till he cried. ‘Why, mother,’ he said, ‘they tell us that the English stock is falling off. Not very much, eh? One English to four Spanish.’
“‘But it’s so terrible,’ my mother said. ‘Yes,’ said my father, ‘fighting is very disgraceful. No more of it, Cil, my lad; but I’ve made a mistake: I ought to have made a soldier of you, after all.’ I say, though, Perry, I do wish I were going with you, all the same.”
“I tell you what,” cried Perry; “I’ll ask my father to ask yours to let you go with us.”
“You will?” cried Cyril, making a rush.
“Mind! we shall have the boat over.”
It was a narrow escape, but by sitting down they made the boat right itself.
“Yes, I’ll ask him to. I say, though, it isn’t so dangerous as you say, is it?”
“They say it is, particularly if you are going to hunt for the gold the Indians have buried.”
“But I don’t know that we are. Would you go, even if it is so dangerous.”
“Of course I would,” cried Cyril excitedly. “I do so want a change. Ahoy! Hurray! Dinner!”
“Eh? Where?” cried Perry.
“Look. Father’s hoisting the flag.”
He pointed in the direction of one of the white villas up on the high cliff slope, where a union jack was being run up a tall signal staff by a figure in white, clearly seen in the bright sunshine, while another figure was evidently using a telescope.
“There’s my father watching us,” said Perry, shading his eyes.
“Lend a hand here and help to haul up this stone,” cried Cyril, and together the boys hauled up the heavy block which served for an anchor.
Five minutes after, they were rowing steadily for the wharf – Incas’ treasure, perils from Indians, fights with Spanish boys, and heights of snow peaks forgotten in the one important of all questions to a hungry youth —Dinner.
Chapter Two
A Failure
Dinner was over at Captain Norton’s. Mrs Norton had left the dining-room, after begging her son and his visitor not to go out in the broiling heat. The boy had promised that he would not, and after he had sat listening to Colonel Campion’s – a keen grey-haired man, thin, wiry in the extreme, and giving promise of being extremely active – talk to his father about the preparations for his trip up into the mountains, Cyril gave Perry a kick under the table, and rose.
Taking the sharp jar upon his shin to mean telegraphy and the sign, “Come on,” Perry rose as well, and the two boys, forgetful of all advice, went and sat in the dry garden, where every shrub and plant seemed to be crying out for water, and looked as if it were being prepared for a hortus siccus beloved of botanists, and where the sun came down almost hot enough to fry.
Here the boys had a long discussion about the promise Perry had made in the boat; after which they waited for an opportunity.
Meanwhile, as the two gentlemen sat chatting over their cigarettes, Captain Norton, a frank, genial, soldierly-looking man, said:
“So you mean to take all the risks?”
“Risks!” said the colonel, turning his keen eyes upon the speaker, as he let the smoke from his cigarette curl up toward the ceiling. “You an old soldier, and ask that?”
“Yes,” said Captain Norton. “I have been here a long time now, and know something of the country.”
“Are the risks so very great, then?”
“To an ordinary traveller – no: to a man going with some special object or search – yes.”
“I did nut say that I was going on a special search,” said Colonel Campion quickly.
“No, but everything points to it; and as you came to me with letters of introduction from an old friend and brother-officer, I receive you as my friend, and treat you as I would a brother.”
“And as the man whom you treat as a brother, I am very reticent, eh?”
“Very,” said Cyril Norton’s father; “and if I try to know why you are going upon so perilous a journey, it is not from curiosity, but because I am eager to save you from running into danger.”
Colonel Campion held out his hand, which was taken, and the two men sat for a few moments gazing in each other’s eyes.
“If I spoke out, Norton, you would immediately do everything you could to prevent me from going, instead of helping me; so I am silent, for I have made up my mind to go, and no persuasion would stop me.”
“Then you are going on an insane quest of the treasures of gold said to have been buried by the Incas’ followers to preserve them from the Spaniards.”
“Am I?” said the colonel quietly.
“I take it for granted that you are; so now, listen. It will be a very dangerous search. That the gold exists, I do not doubt; and I feel pretty sure that the Indians have had it handed down from father to son. Where this gold is hidden in the mountains is a sacred trust, which they in their superstitious natures dare not betray. It means death to any one who discovers one of these hoards.”
“If found out,” said the colonel, smoking, with his eyes half shut.
“He would certainly be found out,” said the captain, “and if you persist in going, you must run the risk; but I beg of you not to take that boy Perry with you, to expose him to these dangers.”
“What am I to do with him, then?”
“Leave him with us. He will be happy enough with my boy Cyril; and my wife and I will take every care of him.”
“Thank you, Norton,” cried the colonel warmly; “I am most grateful. But you are wrong: he would not be happy if he stayed here and I went alone; I believe he would prefer running all risks with me. How odd!” added the colonel, smiling; “here he is, to speak for himself.”
For at that moment the door was softly opened, and Perry stood there, looking startled.
“Come in, boy, come in,” cried the colonel.
“I – I beg; our pardon; I thought Captain Norton had gone.”
“No, and we were just talking about you.”
“About me, father?”
“Yes; Captain Norton thinks it would be too risky and arduous a journey for you up into the mountains, and he says you are to stay here and make yourself happy with Cyril till I come back.”
The lad looked delighted.
“Oh father!” he cried. Then, quick as thought, his manner changed.
“It is very good of Captain Norton,” he said gravely, “but I could not stop here and let you go alone.”
“Don’t be hasty, Perry, lad,” said the captain kindly. “There, I’m going down to the wharf; you and your father chat it over, and we’ll talk about it when I return.”
He left the room, passing out through the veranda.
“Well,” said the colonel, looking away at the window, “I think he’s right, and you had better stay, Perry.”
“I don’t think you do, father,” replied the boy. “Besides, you promised to take me.”
“Um! Yes, I did, my lad; but circumstances have altered since then. They say it’s dangerous up there among the Indians.”
“Then you had better not go, father,” said Perry quickly.
“I have undertaken to go, and I am going,” said the colonel firmly. “I gave my word.”
“And you can’t break it, father?”
“No, my boy, not honourably.”
Perry laughed softly.
“Hullo! What does that mean, sir?” cried the colonel. “Glad I am going into danger?”
“Of course not, father,” said Perry. “I was only laughing because you promised to take me, and you can’t break your word.”
The colonel leaned back and laughed.
“And I’ve come with a petition, father,” said Perry.
“Petition?”
“Yes; you said that it would be nice for me to be with Cyril Norton.”
“Yes, I rather like the lad. He’s a rackety, wild young dog, but there’s a good deal of the gentleman about him. But what do you mean! You said you did not want to stay here.”
“Yes, father, but he wants to stay with us.”
“Stay with us? We’re not going to stay here.”
“I mean, go with us. He is wild to go. Take him with us, father. I should like it so much.”
“Why, Perry, my boy, you’re mad,” said the colonel. “If the journey is so risky that Captain Norton wishes me to leave you here, do you think it likely that he will let his son go?”
“Perhaps he would with you, father. He trusts you.”
“Not to that extent.”
“Try him, father. It would be so nice to have Cil with us.”
“Nice for you, sir – double responsibility for me.”
“You wouldn’t mind that, father, and we would help you so.”
“Yes, nice lot of help I should get from you.”
“You don’t know, father; but, I say, you will ask him?”
“Ask him yourself, sir,” said the colonel firmly; “here he is.”
For at that moment steps were heard in the veranda, and Captain Norton appeared.
“Don’t let me disturb you,” he said; “I came back for some bills of lading. – Well, Perry, you’re going to stop and keep Cil company, eh? I’ll have the big boat out and newly rigged for you boys. You can fish, and sail, and – ”
“But I’m not going to stay, sir,” said Perry quietly.
“Not going to stay! I’m very sorry. But you must think better of it. Sleep on it, my lad. That journey in the mountains will be too arduous for a lad like you.”
“Oh no, sir. I’m light and strong, and – ”
“Yes? And what? You are afraid of outstaying your welcome? Nonsense, boy; you’ll be conferring a favour upon us. I shall be glad for Cil to have your company. He likes you.”
Perry exchanged glances with his father, who nodded, and his eyes seemed to say, “Now’s your time.”
“Yes, sir, and I like Cil. We get on together, and – and he wants to go with us!”
Perry uttered the last words hurriedly, and then wished that he had not said them, for the captain looked at him quite fiercely.
“What!” he exclaimed.
“Cil said he would give anything to go with us, sir, and I promised to ask my father if he would take him.”
“Well,” said Captain Norton sternly, “and have you asked him?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What does he say?”
“He says no,” said the colonel firmly. “There is no doubt, I suppose, that I am going to run some risks, and I begin to feel now that I am hardly warranted in exposing my own son to these dangers. I should certainly not be right in exposing the son of a friend to them, even if that friend consented, which he would not. Am I right, Norton?”
“Quite right,” said the gentleman addressed.
“Then we need say no more about it,” cried the colonel. “Pray, my boy, help us by dissuading your new friend from thinking about so mad a project. We must not make Captain and Mrs Norton regret their kindness to us.”
“No, father. I understand,” said Perry.
“Then there is an end of the matter,” said the colonel.
“Not quite,” said their host, smiling, “I am still hoping that you will stay with us, Perry.”
“No, sir,” said the boy, very firmly now, “I am going with my father. I wish, though, you would let Cil come too.”
“Impossible, my lad,” said the captain.
“Then now let’s change the subject,” said the colonel. “I do not start yet for a week, and plenty of things may occur to alter all our opinions and determinations.”
“They will not alter mine,” said the captain firmly. “If you both alter yours, I shall be very glad. There, I must go now.”
Captain Norton gave Perry a friendly nod, and left them once more.
“There, Perry, you hear?”
“Yes, father, but he may alter his mind.”
“Don’t expect it, my lad; Captain Norton is firm as a rock in all he decides upon.”
“So is Cyril, father.”
“Not quite,” said the colonel, smiling; “the stuff is soft yet, and will have to yield. There, go and tell him you have failed.”
“Yes, father,” said Perry sadly.
“And you mean to go with me?”
“Of course, father.”
“Very well,” said the colonel, and Perry left the room.
