CHAPTER XIII--THE STORY OF ATUPO
"Friend?" said he; and though he pronounced the word in the strangestfashion, I at once took his meaning.
I assured him of my good intentions, that I was no friend of those whohad committed so dastardly an outrage. And at that, though in thegreatest pain--as I could see--he smiled and thanked me.
I will not repeat word for word the childish broken English that hetalked. He knew nouns enough to express his meaning, but this was allof our language that he had, and for verbs he was obliged to fall backupon grimaces and gesticulations. These, however, were so forcible andgraphic that I was never at a loss to understand him: and during the sixweeks that this man and I lived together in the ruins, whilst his brokenleg was mending, he came to speak quite fluently in my language,whereas--to my shame, be it confessed--I learned not a dozen words ofhis.
I asked him how he had picked up his English; and since I had alreadyguessed his answer, the familiar sound of that fond name was no lesspleasant in my ears.
"John Bannister," said he; and then asked me eagerly where Bannister nowwas.
I shook my head, telling him as simply and as briefly as I could thewhole of my adventures, from the time when I was kidnapped a few milesfrom my home beyond the seas to the day when I took my departure fromthe habitations of the wild men of the woods.
His story I got from him by degrees, after I had tended to his wounds. Ihad no knowledge of surgery, but I knew that a broken leg must be madefast to a splint; and, borrowing a knife, I returned that very eveningto the forest, and cut a straight branch from a tree, as well as a longcoil of liana, which I wound about my shoulders like a garden-hose.
I peeled the bark from two sides of the branch to make it as smooth aspossible, and then bound it tightly to the poor man's leg by means ofthe liana. I bathed his wound daily with the clean water from thespring within the vault; and in a few days the blood ceased to flow andthe wound--a rough, ugly rent from a leaden bullet--began to heal.
There was a plentiful supply of food within the chamber--bananas, driedberries, and manioc; and together we lived, this man and I, inuneventful idleness, he flat upon his back on a bed of rushes, Iattending to his daily wants.
He claimed direct descent from the _incas_ of Old Peru. He told me muchthat I already knew: that in the great land which had been discovered byPizarro there had been two races, the common Peruvians and those of_inca_ stock. The latter was the nobility of the land, being of royalblood; and it was they who had held the important offices of state andformed the priesthood.
Centuries ago, upon the fall of Cuzco, Cahazaxa, one of the greatestnobles in the kingdom, escorted by an army of priests and soldiers,conveyed the Greater Treasure across the mountains, and hid it in theforest that extends across the whole valley of the Upper Amazon and itstributaries. The Spaniards got wind of this, and some years afterwards,in the year 1541, an expedition led by the redoubtable Orellano, alieutenant of Gonzalo Pizarro, crossed the eastern chain of the Andes insearch of El Dorado, or that country which was then but vaguely known asthe Land of the Gilded King.
This "Gilded King" was Cahazaxa himself, who, at the time of Orellano'sfamed expedition, had been for some months dead. But the littlecivilised colony that he had established in the wilderness survived, andcontinued to survive until the middle of the last century, when I myselfbeheld the last of it.
Now, in the narration of historical and other facts, I have the greatestregard for a certain principle, established by the Greeks: the habit ofreserving for its proper place each item of information, whether it beof primary or secondary importance. On that account, I ask you,therefore, for the space of a chapter or so, to bear in mind the famousname of Orellano and his search for the Land of the Gilded King--anaffair to which I must soon refer again. I set down now only that whichthe _inca_ himself told me, together with such historical facts as wereknown to me at the time.
Cahazaxa was dead; and he was buried in a cavern, high amidst thecloud-wrapped mountains, where his soul might rest in peace the nearerto the God he worshipped--the life-giving and almighty Sun, who, as heheld, in the very dawn of the ages had sent Manco Copac and Mama OelloHuaco to earth, to make the Incas of Peru glorious and great.
Orellano, the Spaniard, failed to find the Treasure. Undergoing themost terrible privations, he and his gallant followers pierced theforest, and, making one of the most remarkable journeys in the wholehistory of exploration, descended into the main stream of the greatRiver of Mystery--as I call the Amazon--and, finally, after eight monthsof hardship and of peril, came within sight of the Atlantic.
The courage of these men is much to be commended. The modern explorerhas at his service breech-loading magazine rifles, invaluablegeographical and scientific knowledge, and an adequate supply ofsuitable food and drugs. But these bold Spaniards of the sixteenthcentury had nothing, save their own stout hearts and strong Toledoblades. Enough has been written concerning their greed, their bigotryand cruelty. The story might be told again and again of theirindomitable bravery. Orellano knew not whither he was going. When hedecided to shoot the rapids, taking his life in his hands, he might aswell have thrown dice with Death. How can we do aught but honour theland that has produced such sons as Cortez and Pizarro, Orellano, VascoNunez, and Alonzo de Ojeda?
But, for the present, we are more concerned with Cahazaxa, a hero noless than these doughty Spaniards. He and his followers hid themselvesin the wilderness, and there both Orellano and Pizarro himself failed tofind them; and in this there is little to wonder at, when we considerthe immensity of the great Forest of the Amazon.
They built for themselves a massive temple after the fashion of thesacred palaces of Quito and Cuzco, dedicated to the Sun; and in courseof time they constructed roads and bridges across the rivers, foundingfor themselves a colony where the civilisation of the _incas_ lived fora century or more after their own country across the mountains hadfallen under the dominion of the hated Spaniard.
This was the land of the Gilded King, the country of El Dorado. Word ofits existence came to Quito, from the lips of savage aborigines pronenaturally to exaggeration; but, though party after party of avaricious,bold adventurers crossed the mountains, the Peruvian settlement remainedundisturbed. The secret of the "Big Fish" was never discovered eitherby the Spaniards or the Portuguese, who in the next century came up thegreat river from the east, traversing the country that is now calledBrazil.
I did not learn all this from the _inca_ priest himself; but so much ofit as he could not tell me I knew already from what I had read of thosegolden days when the New World was a land of Mystery and Romance, andmen thought and talked of doubloons instead of dollars.
It is true, I never beheld with my own eyes the actual civilisation ofancient Peru as it had existed in Cahazaxa's time, because, many yearsbefore, it had died a natural death. The Peruvians, born and bred uponthe western sea-board or the great tablelands beyond the Andes, were notable to survive in the humid atmosphere of the tropic forest. In courseof time, a colony of several thousands, whom Cahazaxa had led across themountains, had dwindled to a community of a few families of the old_inca_ stock, the majority of whom served as priests of the Sun in thegreat ruined temple, constructed by their forefathers, which they werenot able to keep in repair.
It was these men, descended in a direct line from the _incas_ whom theSpanish conquerors had driven forth from Cuzco and Quito, who guardedthe secret of the Greater Treasure. It was they who were treacherouslyattacked and foully done to death by Amos Baverstock. And I will nowrelate the full story of that brutal enterprise as I got it from thelips of the man whom I befriended.
Baverstock, with his three companions, had come to the temple some weeksbefore, on the day they had tied me to the tree and left me to starve todeath.
The priests had been greatly alarmed at the sight of the intruder, whomthey recognised at once. They remembered the time when Baverstock andTrust had attacked the temple, and they had b
een obliged to fight fortheir lives, and would then and there have been slaughtered, had it notbeen for John Bannister, who placed himself at their head and drove Amosforth.
But Bannister was no longer with them to fortify them with his courage,to preside at their councils, and to deal death to their enemies withhis swift, unerring aim. And they were terrified at the very sight ofAmos, as I myself had been when I first set eyes on the man upon theSussex shore.
He demanded to know where the Greater Treasure was hidden. He remindedthem that they had lied to him once, and held forth threats that madetheir blood run cold. If they lied to him again, he would return, andno man of them would live to fool Amos Baverstock a third time.
Now, they dared not speak the truth, for they were sworn to secrecybefore the Sun, which they believed to be the Creator of the Universe;and yet, they dared not lie, for they knew Amos would be as good, or asevil, as his word.
So, swearing upon all things they looked upon as holy, they set Amos andhis friends upon the right road to the "Big Fish." They told him tofollow a certain track across the grassland, until he came to a range ofdown-like, grass-clad hills. Thence, to the west, lay a wood inmid-valley, and in a glade in this wood the Treasure was buried, theplace being marked by a great red stone, standing forth in the form of amonster fish in the act of leaping from the water. Here, clearly, wasthe origin of the legend, current among the natives even to this day, ofthe Big and Little Fishes. And when I heard the story as it was told meby the _inca_ priest, I confess I was conscious that my heart beat morerapidly and the warm blood of my youth was stirred within me.
But Amos Baverstock cared nothing for legend. He lived only to layhands upon a horde of untold gold; and that same day he left the Templeof Cahazaxa and set forth to the west upon his treasure hunt.
And when he was gone, the priests held conference, demanding of Atupowhy he had told their enemy so much of their cherished secret--for Atupowas the name of the surviving priest with whom I talked among the templeruins. For he it was who devised the scheme whereby he hoped both tosave the lives of his friends and to preserve the Greater Treasure; andnow that all had failed so dreadfully, to the great pain he sufferedfrom his wound was added anguish and remorse, inasmuch as the blame washis.
He advised them to arm themselves, and took with him ten of the bestarchers of the little community, ordering them to steep the heads oftheir arrows in the juice of the venomous weed that grows in theforest--which is nothing more or less than strychnine, one of the mostvirulent of poisons.
Atupo, with these ten men, who were all young and fleet of foot,traversed the grassland by a series of forced marches by night, so thatthey outdistanced Amos and reached first the Wood of the Red Fish--forso, with a little latitude, may be translated the old Peruvian name. Andthere they laid an ambush by a pathway along which Amos, and those withhim, would be obliged to pass, and each archer was instructed to pickout his man. Four were detailed to shoot at Amos, three at Trust, andtwo each at Forsyth and the Spaniard, Vasco.
Now, it seems not possible that a plan so well thought out could fail;and yet, it would seem also that here, at least, the devil helped hisown.
For Mr. Forsyth, and not Amos, came first to the ambuscade; and of thetwo arrows, one struck a silver tobacco tin that he chanced to becarrying that day in the pocket over his heart, and the other shearedoff his right ear as cleanly as a tailor snips his cloth with a pair ofscissors. And in the fraction of a second, Forsyth, all bleeding fromthe head, had his revolver from its holster, and had shot down two ofthe priests.
Thus was the alarm given to Amos and those who followed him; and therewas no question of a surprise. It came to a hand-to-hand affair, andthen a running fight amid the woodland undergrowth, in which the bow andarrow had but a small chance against modern firearms. One by one, thepriests were dropped in their tracks, and only Atupo himself escapedwith life, though sorely wounded in the leg.
He got clear of the wood, and lay hidden, day after day, in the longgrass of the plain, journeying by night towards the forest, endeavouringto reach the ruined Temple of Cahazaxa. Though his leg was not thenbroken, he could do no more than crawl a few miles at a time, so that hewas long weeks upon the road.
And during all these days, Amos beat the wood from west to east, fromsouth to north, and failing to find the "Red Fish," believed that he hadagain been sent upon a wild-goose chase; and the more firm was he inthis conviction since there had been such treachery on the part of the_inca_ priests.
I heard afterwards that his wrath was like that of a madman; he stampedand raved, and swore that he would return to the temple and put everyliving soul to death. And yet, they could not move a yard upon theirbackward journey, until Forsyth's life was out of danger.
Without doubt, Mr. Gilbert Forsyth would have died in torture, thereamid the foothills of the distant Andes, had it not been for his ownpromptitude and courage. For no sooner did he feel the poison workinginward from the wound where the arrow had cut off an ear, than he thrustthe blade of a hunting-knife into a glowing charcoal camp-fire, andhimself placed the red-hot steel upon the lacerated flesh.
And though he fainted at the time, and fell afterwards into a ragingfever, this action saved, perhaps, his life. In the wilderness,rough-and-ready methods are often unavoidable; only he who is bold andstrong can survive, whilst the weakling falls by the way. That Forsyth,despite his affectations and his London ways, was a man of action whocould face pain as well as danger, this deed of his was in itself enoughto prove. With his own hand he burned the poison from his flesh.
For all that, he lingered for many days betwixt life and death; and itwas the delay caused thereby that gave Atupo time to regain the temple.
He had intended to give warning to his brother priests, and for thispurpose he arrived none too soon. Many were so alarmed at the news ofthe disaster that they departed instantly, seeking shelter in the forestand taking with them their wives and families. But three remained, tocollect the sacred lamps and vessels that were within the Temple,meaning to set forth the following day. And these were caught atmidnight by Amos, who turned assassin then and there; for it was he whokilled them with his own hands, in the great vault beneath the ruins.
Atupo, too, he shot, though the man lay wounded on the ground, exhaustedafter the effort of his long journey across the grassland, and left himthere for dead, his already wounded leg fractured a few inches below thehip.
All this I learned from the man himself, while I nursed him under theTemple--all save the story of the fortitude of Mr. Forsyth, of which Iheard afterwards, as in due time I will tell.