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.

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.