CHAPTER XXVII--HOW AMOS MET HIS END
We stood horror-stricken upon the bank of that dark pool--mute, impotentspectators of a tragedy we were powerless to prevent.
Vasco, the Spaniard, stood beside me; and I heard his teeth chatteringin his head like castanets. As for Forsyth, before that gruesomespectacle was ended he turned away with a kind of sickening sob, at thesame time passing a hand across his eyes, by which I knew that the manwas human after all. Bannister--who had soon caught us up--saidnothing, but stood rigid at the back of us, his rifle in his hands,ready to fire so soon as an opportunity should offer. As for myself, itwas as if I was transfixed in petrified amazement. I was hypnotised bythe terror of the thing I saw, and could not look away, but must watchthe tragic business to the last.
With a great splash of water, the immense body of the snake arose fromout the middle of the pool, the surface of which forthwith becameagitated by scores of little waves, forming a series of concentriccircles, spreading outward to the bank.
We saw the glistening coils of the terrific reptile wind themselves,swiftly and yet stealthily, around the frail body of the doomed, unhappyAmos. He let out a piercing shriek, far more terrifying to hear thanthe uncanny laughter with which he had disturbed the silence of thewoods--it was freezing in its shrillness. And at the same time he threwboth his arms above his head, so that his heavy bundle of golden ingotsfell into the water and at once disappeared from view.
He made--so far as we could see--no effort of resistance. Terror, itseemed, had mastered every muscle, nerve, and sinew in his body. He wasparalysed by fear. We could see, in that dim, religious light, the hugehead of the snake swaying backward and forward in front of him, whilstits long forked tongue darted swiftly in and out. We saw the man'sface, too, livid with fright, and his wide, staring eyes. For a momentall his features worked spasmodically. I think he tried to cry out oncemore; but the breath had already been driven from his slender frame bythe colossal strength of the relentless serpent that, even as we looked,broke down the slender bulwark of his ribs.
It was then that John Bannister fired. He told me afterwards that hemeant to put Baverstock out of the torture he was suffering both of bodyand of mind. If that were so, it was a lucky shot; for it killed atonce the reptile and the man.
The bullet drilled the anaconda, breaking its spine, and thence piercedthe heart of Amos Baverstock. The unhappy wretch vanished from sightupon the instant beneath the water of the pool; but the dying strugglesof that gigantic snake were amazing to behold.
It lashed right and left, twisting all ways, writhing like a worm; sothat we, who looked on, were drenched in flying water. It made the mostfrantic efforts to drag itself from the pool. The lower part of itsbody seemed to be paralysed and quite useless; but at last it succeededin half twining itself around the trunk of a tree, where its head swayedfrom side to side quite aimlessly. What surprised--and I thinkhorrified--us most of all was the silence of the brute.
I fired, and missed; for my hand trembled violently. And, thereby, itwas left to Bannister to end the work he had begun. With his secondshot he smashed in the reptile's head; and the great snake at last laymotionless, as loathsome in death as it had been terrible in life. I amready to believe that five minutes elapsed before any one of us spake oreven moved.
"I shall never cease to dream of this," said Forsyth, in a weak voice,at last. "No such nightmare ever was!"
I saw that he wiped a hand across his forehead; and I did the same.Though I was splashed all over with the water from the pool, a greatsweat had broken out upon me, and I experienced, in quick succession,alternate sensations of extreme heat and cold.
Vasco seized Bannister by an arm.
"We go away!" he cried, in broken English. "We go now! It is no goodstay here."
The man turned back into the Wood as if he would retreat by the way wehad come; but Bannister called him back.
"Not that way," said he, in Spanish. "It is but a little way from hereto the end of the Wood, and we can pass round to the north across opencountry. I know a way to the south of the morass."
We were under Bannister's orders. And thankful we were that we had sucha man to follow. We knew there was an urgent need to go back to Rushbyas quickly as we might.
We were obliged to pass round the pool, and this brought us to within afew yards of the great body of the snake.
"I never knew," said Bannister, "that such a monster could exist. Hemust be over thirty feet in length. But, come; we can do nothing here."
In single file, as before, we followed him, and presently came forthinto the open air upon the skirting of the Wood.
There we regarded one another in shocked surprise; for the faces of usall were white, and Vasco was still trembling. We said nothing; not aword passed between us; but we all breathed deeply, like men who hadbeen for a long time under water.
I looked up at the blue sky and the hills in the distance, to the east,whence I had first looked down upon the Wood of the Red Fish, after myjourney across the plain. And I remembered what I had then thought; howI was filled with the restless spirit of adventure; how the joy of lifewas strong within me, whilst I ran the danger of my life, all naked as Iwas, with my Indian blow-pipe in my hand and my quiver full of arrows.But now I had seen the very face of death. I had beheld a livingterror. The mask of Romance had been removed from the forbidding faceof Tragedy. And that Wood was now to me a dread, unholy place, wherein,I knew, I would never dare to venture again, in spite of the greatTreasure that lay hidden in its midst.
"I would not go back," I cried to Bannister, "for all the Treasure ofthe Incas, for all the treasure in the world!"
My old friend looked at me, and smiled.
"You are right," he answered. "And there never will be a need to, Dick.As soon as we are rested, we must find our honest Rushby, and do what wecan for him."
We camped that night in the open air, a mile or so to the south of themorass; and the following morning continued our journey, keeping theWood to our left.
We had not gone far before we discovered the figure of a man, who camerunning towards us from the direction of the hills. I noticed that headvanced with a peculiar limp, and on this account, for the moment, Ibelieved it to be Rushby, most marvellously recovered of his wound.
But when the runner had drawn quite near to us, I was surprised beyondmeasure to recognise my old friend, Atupo, the Peruvian priest, whom Ihad befriended in the vault beneath the Temple of Cahazaxa.
Though I called him by his name, he cast never so much as a glance at meor any of the others, save Bannister, at whose feet he threw himself, aspagans prostrate themselves before the idols that they worship.
"My master!" he exclaimed, and went on, in his quaint, broken English,in some such strain as this: "I never thought to live to set eyes on youagain."
Bannister lifted him to his feet and, laying a hand affectionately uponhis shoulder, asked him what news he had of his friends and brethren,who had fled from their dwellings before the wrath of Amos.
Atupo told him that the majority had sought refuge in the woods, wheremany of their number had been treacherously murdered by the wild men. Hehimself, however, had founded a small colony of some score of personswho were living by the side of the ravine that crossed the plain, not sofar beyond the hills that we could see. All these, he said, wereanxious to return to Cahazaxa's Temple, but dared not do so, believingAmos to be still abroad.
Bannister at once set the man's mind at rest, assuring him that it wasnot only safe for them to return, but that Amos himself was dead and theGreater Treasure undisturbed.
At that, Atupo threw up his hands by way of a gesture of delight; andthen, looking about him, for the first time recognised both Mr. Forsythand myself. And it is doubtful which of the two of us he was mostsurprised to see.
Myself he regarded as a trusted friend; but he knew that Forsyth hadbeen one of Baverstock's party, and he was astounded to behold thatgentleman aliv
e. Being told by Bannister that he had naught to fear, hepointed straight at Forsyth.
"But that man should be dead!" he cried. "With my own eyes I saw himshot with an arrow, the point of which was steeped in deadly poison."
And then it was that Mr. Gilbert Forsyth told us the truth, which I haveset down already: how, with a fortitude that one cannot but admire, hehad burned the poison from his flesh, and thus saved his life, though hehad fallen into a fever.
Atupo, soon afterwards, expressed himself anxious to return to his ownfriends; but Bannister was one whose custom it was to look well ahead,and he knew that the ancient Peruvians had been well skilled inmedicine.
"Friend Atupo," said he, "we have need of your assistance; for there isone of our number who is sorely wounded. You and your comrades owe nota little to us; and I will, therefore, ask you to go back to the Temple,and there await our coming. Prepare such drugs as you may have for aman who has a wound in the leg that will not heal."
"Does the sun ask the moon to shine?" inquired the Peruvian. "What ofthe white man's medicines?"
Bannister threw out his hands.
"Alas!" he exclaimed. "We have none; we have used all we had."
And so the matter was settled; Atupo, the priest, returning to theTemple, and ourselves veering round to the west, between the Wood andthe morass, towards the place where we had left William Rushby.