CHAPTER XVI--I FIND THE "BIG FISH"
For a considerable time I had regarded this small piece of parchment inthe light of a mystery, a species of conjuring trick, just as oneregards the billiard-ball, the rabbit, or the eggs that a conjurorproduces from the upturned sleeve of his shirt. But now I saw quiteclearly that the thing had an intrinsic value, a significance of itsown; it bore a certain definite message--a message that most nearlyconcerned myself.
Eagerly, with hands that trembled somewhat, I studied the map. It willbe remembered that the portion which Amos possessed had been torn acrossthe place where was marked the Temple of Cahazaxa. Upon the fragmentthat had come into my hands by so strange and mysterious a chance, I wasable to trace the route that I myself had taken from the temple ruins tothe Wood of the Red Fish. The ravine was shown, and that wonderfulsuspension-bridge that had so amazed me when I saw it. From the hills tothe east--from the crestline of which I bad viewed the distant glory ofthe Andes--a track was marked, leading towards the south; whereas I, inhot haste at the time, had continued upon my way due westward.
Now, this track was shown to lead to a certain stream that came forthfrom the Wood of the Red Fish upon the south. And it was called theBrook of Scarlet Pebbles, an Indian name being thus translated in redink in the handwriting of John Bannister.
The map had been drawn to no scale. Like many ancient and mediaevaldocuments, it was entirely without proportion or perspective. Forinstance, the Wood itself--which was never more than fifteen milesacross--appeared to be of area equal to that vast tract of country thatlay between the great mountain to the north of the forest and the Templeof Cahazaxa--a journey that had taken us many weeks.
There was some sense in this; for in regard to the Wood of the Red Fish,where the Treasure itself was hidden, it was necessary to be precise, ifthe map were to be of any value. I saw that one must follow the Brookof Scarlet Pebbles, until it entered a pool, where Bannister had writtenthe words: "Electric Eels." There, it appeared, the stream flowedunderground, for its course was dotted, and these dots ended at a cross,bearing the words: "THE RED FISH IS HERE."
This cross referred, as I could see at a glance, to certain marginalnotes, written in such minute handwriting that it was all that I coulddo to read them, especially in view of the fact that Bannister's red inkhad faded. At last, however, I managed to make out the followinginscription:
"_The tail of the Fish. A blow-pipe from the nose of the Fish. Twenty yards across the Brook. Three feet, below the ground--a Ring._"
This I read to myself over and over again. At one moment I thought itclear enough, and at the next, too vague. At all events, thought I, Iwill find out when I get there, for thither I intended to go.
I could not sleep that night, and I will not go so far as to say that Itried to. I was so thrilled and mystified that my thoughts were runningriot; and surely there is little to wonder at in this. The bones of theSpanish warrior lay in the ground beneath me, together with his armourand his sword, for I had put back the tombstone in its place and coveredit again with a thin layer of soil. That brave adventurer slept intranquillity in the silent chamber of the heart of the tropic jungle.He and the sword I have little doubt he had wielded with such subtletyand skill were now alike at rest. His treasure-hunt, at least, wasended; but mine was only just begun.
For I was determined to set forward when the daylight came, to searchfor the Brook of Scarlet Pebbles. If I found the margin of the Wood,and followed this towards the south, I must sooner or later hit upon thestream--if the map had any claim to accuracy. I could then follow thebrook, until eventually I found the Red Fish itself; and, if I could notthen associate any definite meaning with the queer, disjointed words inthe margin of the map, my own intelligence must alone be held to blame.
One of the reasons why I could not sleep was that I had committed thesewords to memory and kept repeating them to myself, just like a parrot,without any idea as to their meaning. That they had a meaning I neverdoubted, for John Bannister himself had written them; and though I wasnow grown older and had had many strange adventures of my own, I hadstill my ancient and profound respect for the wisdom of my hero.
I thought of him that night, but more of Amos Baverstock, whom Ibelieved to be somewhere near at hand, upon the same quest as I. Onthat account, I realised that I must make haste upon the morrow. I hadrisked so much already, I had undergone so many hardships, that I wasdetermined--now that I thought myself within reach of my goal--to seethe business through. From the hills to the east I had looked down uponthe Wood, and knew that it was not three days' march from one side tothe other, though the undergrowth was thick and tangled; and therefore Iknew also that the Red Fish could not be far away.
I think I slept a little in the early hours of the morning, to beawakened by the birds stirring in the trees, and the daylight streamingfrom above through that same gap by means of which my nightly task hadbeen illumined by the moon. I ate such food as I had left, and then setforth towards the east, guiding my footsteps as well as I was able bythe light of the rising sun.
I came, at about midday, to the eastern side of the Wood, and looked outtowards the hills whither I had journeyed from the plain. Thence, Iturned towards the south and, walking once again in open country,progressed at a fair pace, and never once sat down to rest, until thedaylight waned. I went then into the Wood, and searched for berriesthat I knew were fit to eat; and when I had eaten these, I lay downbeneath a great tree and immediately fell fast asleep.
The following morning, I continued my journey along the margin of theWood. My naked body was now burned by the sun to the colour of anIndian's skin. Indeed, I am not sure that I was not even darker ofcomplexion than the wild woodland people with whom I had lived. My hairwas long, like that of a savage, for it had not been cut for months. Ihad a leather girdle over a shoulder from which depended an Indianquiver filled with darts. And there was something of the joy of lifewithin me, as I swung upon my way. I had health, at least, if I wore noclothes upon my back. I felt convinced that my footsteps were leadingme to the hidden Treasure of the Incas; and I tossed my blow-pipe in theair and caught it, time and again.
The joy of life was in me, and the spirit of adventure. The sun shonedown upon me, and I breathed deeply of the open air; for the wind wasfrom the east, and the rank smell of decaying vegetation--so generalthroughout the Wood--was no longer in my nostrils.
And, presently, I came upon the Brook of Scarlet Pebbles. The water wasclear as crystal, and I went down upon my knees to drink my fill, for Iwas thirsty. There was no question that I had found the stream forwhich I had been searching, since the water flowed over a bed of littlerounded stones, every one of which was in colouring some tone or tint ofred. They ranged from pink to crimson; and they were all of granite,though worn as smooth as marbles.
Here was the brook that I must follow; so I turned into the Wood again,and all that day followed the course of the stream, which winded andtwisted in so many directions that I wondered I had never seen itbefore.
That afternoon, being hungry for the taste of meat, I killed with myblow-pipe a great bird that I found sitting on a branch, blinking likean owl. I think he was some kind of bustard. At any rate, he was goodto eat, when roasted, and I sat long by my camp-fire, picking his boneswith my fingers. Then I pulled out my fragment of the map and looked atit.
It was manifest that I was not yet come to that part of the brook whereits course was marked by means of little dots; but, knowing the fullextent of the Wood, I had a good reason to suppose that I was not farfrom my destination. And then I read again the queer marginalinstructions: _The tail of the Fish_--I must see that for myself; _ablow-pipe from the nose of the Fish_--whatever that might mean, at allevents I had a blow-pipe, and a good one, too. As for the rest, I gaveit up. It was a riddle that I would solve when I got there--I feltquite sure of that. I folded up the map and placed it in my quiver, thenearest thing to a pocket that I possessed.
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And the next day I continued on my way, following the course of theBrook of Scarlet Pebbles. I noticed that these pebbles were now largerthan before, and were so deep red in the shadow under the trees that theclear water had the look of blood. Then I came to the pool, and thoughtat first that the brook was come to an end.
There were no pebbles here, but mud; and in my eagerness I waded in, tobe made at once painfully conscious of a tingling sensation in my legs.Now and again something touched me--something quick and slimy; and eachtime I received a shock. I had forgotten, for the moment, all about theelectric eels; but, when I remembered it, I was more pleased thanstartled, for I knew that, so far, I was on the right track and that themap could be relied upon.
All about the pool was dense and tangled underwood, the branches ofwhich dipped here and there into the water. And there were also waterplants, some with flat, floating leaves, others tall reeds withplume-like heads.
I knew that this pool was not the termination of the brook; and yet,though I searched for a long time, I could find no continuation of thestream, until an idea occurred to me which at once solved the problem. Iplucked the little down-like feathers from one of my blow-pipe darts.And these, at intervals of a few yards, I dropped upon the surface ofthe water, all around the bank of the pool, until I found the streamitself, flowing through a dense clump of thickets.
Through this I broke my way, and as I did so, I remembered the anaconda,and was filled with my old fear of snakes. It was plain already that mysurmise had been wrong. The brook did not flow underground, but, forabout a hundred yards or so, through a dark and narrow tunnel, formed oflow-growing creepers.
So dense were these that I was obliged to break my way, almost everyinch; and, though my skin was now near as hard as leather, I wasscratched so badly by the thorn-trees that I was bleeding from a scoreof places upon my chest and shoulders, when I came forth once more intothe half-light of the woods.
I could not see at first, for my eyes had grown accustomed to thedarkness, and I found myself in an open glade, where the trees were thinand the rays of the sun no more than broken by the leaves above me.
Then I looked, and I saw the brook before me, here flowing straight upona rocky bed. Indeed, there were rocks everywhere, with rich soilbetween them, in which were growing many strange and beautiful plants.It was a natural rock-garden, far more wonderful to see than any yetdesigned by man. The rocks were of dark-red granite, and the flowersthere in bloom were all the colours of the rainbow. But I looked notonce at them. I gazed, like one hypnotised, upon a great stone to myright; for I had seen at once that this stone was the very shape andimage of a fish.
How it stood there I cannot say, for, like the famous toadstone atTunbridge Wells, which I myself had seen when my mother took me there inchildhood, it looked as if it would topple over. For the fish, asfishes are, was big in the head and narrow in the tail; and he stoodforth from the ground at an angle of about sixty degrees, and his mouthwas open, and there was a hole--on my side, at any rate--near where hiseye should be.
The more I looked at it, the more wonderful I thought it. It might havebeen graven by the hand of man, and cleverly at that; save that thisfish was devoid of fins, and the semblance, as I afterwards discovered,was not so striking from any other point of view.
Stepping from the water, I scrambled over the rocks, where I sat medown, and heaved a great sigh, which I do not pretend to be able toexplain. Relief, joy, victory--all were mixed up in it, I do not doubt.Here was I, at the end of all my travels; I had reached the conclusionof my journey. The Big Fish was there.
"I HAD REACHED THE CONCLUSION OF MY JOURNEY. THE BIGFISH WAS THERE."]
To achieve anything is a conquest, great or small. I had sojourned inthe wilderness, it seemed, for years; I had stood in constant peril ofmy life; I had journeyed in company of cut-throats; I had lived withsavage men; I had seen something of the glories of old Peru, the Templeof Cahazaxa; I had marched for days and days alone, naked and carryingmy Indian blow-pipe in my hand. And there was the Big Fish--the verysign-post, as one might call it, to the Greater Treasure of the Incas.
And as these thoughts jangled in my brain, a shot rang out--how far awayI could not tell, but somewhere in the Wood.