*CHAPTER XX*
*THE WATERFALL*
The flat was not a large one, but the new-comers could see it was mostluxuriously furnished and fitted with every modern convenience. Uzaliled the way into a cosy dining-room where he switched on the electriclights. The walls were dark red, showing up the pictures and china toperfection, and the overmantel was fitted with a bookcase. With a waveof his hand Uzali bade his guests be seated.
"Oh, yes, it is fairly comfortable," he said with a shrug of hisshoulders. "I am getting to the time of life when one takes aphilosophic view of things. After all, I have little more than I want.I have my many friends in London and I have my books. Still, I cannotforget that if I had my deserts I should be in a very differentposition. I ought to be a prince in my native country, with the controlof some thousands of men, and there are times when the longing for theold life grips me and I could commit a thousand crimes to feel my feeton my native soil again. But all that is past and done with. I amwaiting my time, and when one man pays the penalty for his crime I shallbe free to go my own way again. But I did not bring you here to talkabout myself. On the contrary, I am anxious to hear Mr. Russell'sstory."
"I am afraid there is very little story I have to tell," Russellreplied. "I have been a rolling stone all my life, always seeing afortune and never finding one. I have no doubt if I had stayed at homelike the average man I should have done well enough, but from myearliest days the fever of adventure has been in my blood and I cannotsettle down. I have been everywhere where gold is to be found. I haverisked my life a score of times only to come out of each adventure alittle poorer than I went in. Three years ago I was stranded at KeyWest penniless and without a notion how to get a night's shelter. Thereby great good fortune I found a man I had met years before, and to him Iexplained how I was situated. He had not much to offer me, save that hewas going to Borneo orchid-hunting, and he wanted some one to accompanyhim. I jumped at the chance. Anything was better than the slowstarvation that stared me in the face. To make a long story short, welanded five weeks later in North Borneo and proceeded to push our wayinland. It was all right for a day or two, then we began to have somenotion of the difficulties which surrounded us.
"The natives were bad, to begin with, and matters were made all theworse by the discovery that those people regarded certain flowers assacred. They attacked us one night when we were quite unprepared for anassault, and in the morning I was the only one of our party who was leftalive. My life was spared by accident. I happened to have in mypossession a medicine-chest out of which I had given one of our nativefollowers some quinine which cured him of ague. Of course I need nottell you that we were betrayed, and that my native patient was one ofthe traitors. I thought my time had come as I lay there before one ofthe camp fires, picking out words here and there from their jargon, aportion of which was familiar to me. After a day or two I gathered thatI was going to be taken up country and brought into the presence of oneof the chiefs who was suffering from some illness.
"Well, we jogged along for two or three weary days until we came towhat, at one time, must have been a considerable town. I was surprisedto find huge stone buildings divided into streets. I was amazed to seewhat must have been a magnificent circus. I saw scores of baths hewnout of the side and filled with most deliciously cool lake water. Itwas only afterwards that I learnt that the town was situated at the footof a lake, and that hundreds of years ago a great dam had been builtacross the waters to keep them from flowing into the town. I have seennothing so remarkable since I visited old towns in Mexico. One thingstruck me as particularly strange. For all the town was so large, therecould not have been more than five or six hundred inhabitants. Oh, youwill pardon me, Mr. Uzali, but they were, for the most part, the imageof yourself. The natives who had destroyed our expedition were adifferent class of men altogether. They were big, ugly black men. Therewere thousands of them up in the mountains, but they appeared to beterribly afraid of the people who occupied the town."
"A matter of civilization," Uzali muttered.
"Well, perhaps so," Russell went on. "At any rate, they made mecomfortable. I was led to understand that they regarded me with acertain amount of reverence, and I felt safe so long as I made noattempt to escape. I was free to roam the mountains, and the valleysbelow the town, indeed, I was free to do everything I pleased so long asI showed up at twilight. By this time I had established my reputationas a doctor. I was well in with the chief of the tribe. I had learnt agreat deal of their past history. I had learnt something on my ownaccount, too, which I regarded as still more valuable. Below the townin one of the valleys I found traces of gold. I worked a place forweeks until I was certain that the gold was alluvial and that it hadbeen washed down from the lake during hundreds of centuries. Icalculated the amount of gold there. It was worth perhaps a couple ofhundred thousand pounds, and when all that was extracted there would benothing left. There was nothing for it but to bide my time and hope forthe best. Sooner or later my store of drugs would be exhausted, and thenit was possible that I might be allowed to go down to the coast andreplenish the chest.
"There was another discovery I made about the same time and that was alarge amount of treasure which was hidden away in the chief's palace, Ifound it out by accident, too, though I feared at one time that theaccident was going to cost me my life. I don't think I have ever seen aman so majestically angry as the chief was when he caught me gloatingover his treasures.
"'The cause of all our troubles,' he said. 'But for those accursedthings I should be master of this island from one side to the other.They bred greed and murder amongst my followers, they caused theshedding of blood. Base treachery followed wherever they went. No oneknows they are here but myself. No one shall ever know but myself, forafter my death there shall be no more chiefs of the clan, and graduallywe shall fade away and die, as our brethren perished across the seas inMexico. I will make a bargain with you, if you like. If I die firstyou shall have your freedom, you shall take six of my mules and six ofmy ponies, and you shall load them up with everything here that you mostdesire. With my seal upon them they will be safe from all men until youreach the coast.'
"There was nothing more to be said or done after that, only to wait mytime and trust to fortune for a means of escape. So far as thechieftain's offer was concerned I thought no more about it, for he was aman in the prime of life and likely to last as long as I should.
"But one never knows. A week or two later came rumours from themountains that certain white men had penetrated there and that theymeant to make a raid on the town, accompanied by a gang of desperadoeswhom they had bought over by promises of reward. We thought nothing ofit, though it occurred to me once or twice that the chief looked graveand that he did not go quite so far afield as usual. It was late oneafternoon when he came limping back into camp, and a messenger came tome post-haste to say that he had poisoned his foot with a pricklycactus. No sooner had the attendants left us alone than the chief turnedto me eagerly.
"'I have deceived them all,' he whispered. 'It is no cactus which is thecause of the trouble. I was attacked in the woods this afternoon by ahandful of natives who have hitherto been faithful. I managed to escapeunder cover of darkness, but not before I received this wound in myheel, which will be fatal.'
"I smiled at the chief's fears, but he shook his head with the utmostgravity.
"'I tell you I am right,' he said. 'I know the poison well. There isnothing in your box that can cure me, and when I am out of the way thosepeople will swoop upon the town and not one of my followers will live totell the tale. Say nothing to anybody about this, but gather my mostfaithful men about you and let them know what has happened, so that theymay be ready when the times comes, but not to-night--wait till themorrow. Meanwhile, all I want to do is to be left alone to sleep.'
"There was nothing to be done but to obey the chief's commands and Iwent sorrowfully ou
t. I did not return to the palace till the moon washigh and the town asleep. The chief was slumbering peacefully, but hisleg had swollen horribly, and it was evident that he had told me no morethan the truth.
"Sick at heart and utterly undetermined in my mind what to do I climbedthe moonlit street till at length I came to the majestic weir whichbordered the lake and kept the tide back from flooding the town. Itseemed to me as I stood there that I could hear whispered voices, and Ihastened to hide myself behind a mimosa bush. Then a figure emerged intosight--a face and figure quite familiar to me. The light fell full uponhis features and disclosed the last man I expected----"
"I know," Uzali cried, "Samuel Flower!"