Part 4 (2/2)

Amos, as he drew away from me, came out with an oath that I can never write. Indeed, the swearing of this man was not the least of his many sins.

”He has not got it!” he cried. ”We've been fooled, Mr. Forsyth; and that by a slip of a boy!”

I thought that he would kill me, then and there, beneath the shadow of the trees in Slindon Woods. But, though Amos Baverstock often worked himself into fits of ungovernable fury, he never was guilty of a foolish action. For my life--though at the time I never guessed it--was of some use to him. Not only did I know where I had hidden the torn map, but, as like as not, I had looked at it, and might be able to remember the names of some of the places that were marked thereon--knowledge for which Amos would give much. Had it not been for this, I have little doubt he would have put me out of the world.

They tied my feet together, in case I should endeavour to escape, whilst the three seated themselves upon the gnarled surface roots of a great oak tree, and examined their fragment of the map, discussing the question openly, so that I overheard them and learned of the trick that Providence had played us all.

For the map had been rent in twain, not by the hands of Amos Baverstock and me, but by the sure and supple fingers of Almighty Destiny. Amos had in his possession at least three-quarters of the parchment--he had it all, indeed, except one corner, that which I had seized in my attempt to wrench it from his grasp. And, as good luck had it, that one corner contained the information of the greatest value: to wit, the exact locality where the Greater Treasure was to be found.

As for the rest of the map, it carried you from the outskirts of what may pa.s.s as modern civilisation to within a certain unknown distance of the secret place. It put you on the right road, as it were, and then left you--lost in the midst of a wilderness of doubt.

When Amos grasped the full significance of this, he jumped to his feet, a perfect figure of fury, storming at me and swearing, using threats and shouting of torture, if I did not then and there confess. But speak I would not. Whatever happened, I was resolved to hold my ground, though I was filled with grave misgivings.

For all that afternoon they badgered me, trying intimidation, bribery and curses; and then, at last, they settled it amongst themselves that they would take me with them into Portsmouth, and thence across the sea into the very heart of a black barbarous country, where they hoped to find the Treasure of the Incas.

It was then, whilst we waited in the woods for sunset, that I saw myself, a lad of sixteen summers, launched upon a series of adventures, among strange peoples and in wild, romantic lands--adventures such as those of which I had often read, of the bold Spaniards who had followed Columbus into a new and unknown world, and brave blades of the stamp of Drake and Grenville, who--like John Bannister himself--were all men of Devon. That I was to be one of a company so glorious seemed to me all my heart could wish, though I went as a hostage with my life itself at ransom.

In a strange fas.h.i.+on, in very truth, did I begin my travels; for I journeyed that night to Portsmouth, not only bound hand and foot and tied to the seat of the dog-cart, but gagged as well; so that, by the time we reached our destination, I ached in every limb.

For three weeks we dwelt together in a lodging-house, patronised by seamen, in a poor quarter of the town. The landlord--a fat, slovenly fellow whose hand was seldom far from a pint mug or near a razor--was, as I guessed, hand in glove with Amos; for he must have known that throughout those three dreary weeks I was kept locked in a stuffy room, where I had neither fresh air nor liberty, and no better fare than is accorded to a convict.

I have said that we dwelt together, but this was not wholly so; for Mr.

Gilbert Forsyth, though he was often of our party, had taken rooms in one of the best hotels. He was a gentleman somewhat fastidious in his habits, with a nice taste in wine and clothes, though--as he was soon to prove--he could rough it with the best of us.

Joshua, too, was seldom in our lodgings. It appears that he spent most of his time in the neighbourhood of the docks, on the lookout for an old s.h.i.+pmate whom he knew he could trust, with whom Amos could strike a bargain.

Such a man was eventually found. Joshua brought him in, one evening, and shortly afterwards Mr. Forsyth arrived, looking more than ever as if he had just come out of a bandbox.

This fellow proved to be the skipper of a barque, due to sail in a few days' time, bound for Caracas in Venezuela. She must call first at Liverpool, to take on a cargo of cotton goods, but would touch at no port upon the voyage but Fayal in the Western Islands, which are now called the Azores.

All this fitted in exceedingly well with Amos's plans. As I was in the next room when they talked the matter out, and they never troubled to close the door, I know for a fact that Baverstock bribed the skipper, and that Forsyth--who I suspected all along had undertaken to produce the funds--paid him as much as fifty pounds down, quite apart from the question of pa.s.sage money, and there was more to come at the end of the voyage.

Gilbert Forsyth, indeed, was a member of the expedition for no other reason than that he supplied the sinews of war, else Amos had never taken him into his confidence and agreed to forego a third part of the loot. For all that, Forsyth proved himself a man of action and resource, though he never looked it; and things would have gone worse with Amos than they did, had he not had at his right hand one so capable and cool throughout those wild, adventurous days.

For Joshua Trust was well enough in his way to strike a blow or carry a camp-kettle across a mountain range that topped the clouds--otherwise he was a bull-in-a-china-shop kind of a fellow, whose worth was in his forearms and not his head.

But Forsyth was cast in a finer mould: a man of education, with tags of Latin in the corners of memory, a sense of humour--subtle enough to be lost upon both his strange companions--and a wonderful brain for figures.

The man's laziness was all pretence and affectation. He always talked as if he were half asleep, and yawned at intervals, screening his mouth with a hand upon one of the fingers of which he wore a golden signet ring; and yet, his brain was ever active, and he had the happy knack of doing the right thing at the right time--as he had already proved to my cost.

Even whilst I lay imprisoned in that dingy room in Portsmouth, Forsyth returned along the coast to within a stone's throw of John Bannister's cabin by the sea, and searched vainly for the fragment of the map which I had thrown away. And that in itself was a bold thing to do; for the police--to whom Bannister had described the appearance of both Baverstock and Trust--had been told of my disappearance, and the countryside, from Arundel to Chichester, was populous with printed offers of reward.

For, all this time, my mother was well near distracted by anxiety and distress. John Bannister called upon her, and tried in his own straightforward way to set her fears at rest, and swore to her that he would find me, though he had to search the world.

Of how well he kept his oath it is my task to write, and of much else besides. For the barque, which was called the _Mary Greenfield_, dropped her pilot off the Needles of the Isle of Wight, and with a fair wind and under full canvas struck the open sea. And I, d.i.c.k Treadgold, was on board, sea-sick that night as any full-grown man could be, and sick at heart as well. For, when the white cliffs of dearest England faded in the evening light, I realised for the first time that I was alone, and there was no telling what the Fates held in store for me.

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