“ Fear spreads, I think, like fire. I was solicitous, at first, for Bannister; and then I feared for myself. Or there may be something in the notion that the evil that is in a man taints the very atmosphere in which he moves. At any rate, even as I thought of Amos Baverstock, I became filled, on a sudden, with my old dread of him. I stood shivering, as if from cold, beneath the trees, by the side of that ancient grave, whilst the darkness spread around me.
And then it was that the voice of Amos Baverstock himself came to my ears with such startling suddenness that I was taken unawares. ”

“ I shouted, like a maniac, springing to my feet and pointing towards the Wood.
"Yes," said Rushby. "He said that he would rather die a thousand times than that Amos should find the Treasure."
I felt as if I had received a violent blow. I knew not, for the moment, what to do. And then I saw my course quite clear before me.
"I'll go to him!" I cried. "Take that, and keep it safe."
And I flung at him my portion of the map, and then snatched up my blow-pipe and my quiver filled with darts, and set off running down the ravine, as fast as my legs would carry me, towards the Wood. ”

“ Hitherto, we had been adventurers in a savage land; we had walked in the midst of dangers that were material and real. But now, with that unearthly laughter for ever in our ears, we felt that we were wayfarers in the dark nether regions, that not only our lives, but our very souls as well, were in peril of perdition, of everlasting death. The fleeting shadows of the Wood were to us the twilight of the Underworld. We were opposed by forces stronger and more evil than wild beasts and wicked men.
Darkness caught us before we had overtaken the madman whom we chased. ”

“ And it was you, Joshua Trust, who once tried to kill me--who, indeed, left me for dead. Do you remember that day in the mountains, when Amos caught me in Cahazaxa's Tomb? Well, now he has done the same for you. He has buried you alive; and when he comes back for the gold he covets, he will think to find it strewn with the bones of those who were fools enough to believe he was their friend."
I heard Trust groan in the darkness; or, I think, perhaps, a growl describes it better. Forsyth, judging by the tones of his voice, was just as calm as ever. ”

“ I shall never forget that moment, for it was the only occasion upon which I saw John Bannister afraid, and Mr. Forsyth alive--a living, sentient being--in every fibre of his body.
"This madman must not live!" he shouted.
Bannister answered slowly, in the same quiet voice in which he had spoken before.
"I am inclined to think you right," said he. "His very existence upon the face of the earth is a blot upon Creation. The sound of that hideous laughter robs the wilderness of all its beauty." ”

“ As for me, whenever I remember that dread Wood I see the gold, stacked and glimmering in the torch-light, and I hear the wild, mad laughter of Amos Baverstock as he fled before us, and see him once again and hear his piercing shriek, when he was caught in the silent, stealthy coils that crushed that evil man to death before our very eyes. And I ask God to have mercy on us who are yet alive, and to save us from a like living and ending. ”

“ And that was the lame and impotent conclusion of the mutiny on board the Mary Greenfield.
My lot was now even worse than before. For week after week I was locked in a stuffy cabin, and got neither fresh air, good food, nor exercise. The calm broke up quite suddenly with a squall, followed by a shower of rain. For about an hour the water came down like a cascade upon the sea, washing the ship from stem to stern, giving--as it appeared to me, looking out from my narrow port-hole--new life to the floating seaweed and the myriads of living things that were swarming in the midst of it. ”

“ I had lived for many months in the wilderness, and my pulse now beat in rhythm with the earth. The forest, the majestic mountains I had seen at sunrise, the sky of stars above the plain--all these were mysteries to me, wondrous and eternal. But there was neither eternity nor mystery in the work of man; in gold, in the rusted sword of Orellano's soldier, or Cahazaxa's Temple. ”

“ He was dressed like a fop in the height of the fashion of that day, wearing a white tie, with a great gold pin in it, a well-curled moustache and those short side-whiskers which were then the vogue. He had light-blue eyes and fair, curly hair, and had it not been for the side-whiskers, would have looked much younger than he was. Everything about him suggested that he was--or should have been--a gentleman of means and leisure.
"Cave tibi cane muto," he repeated, more slowly than before. And this time I had the sense to understand it: "Beware of the silent dog."
"Just so," said Amos. ”

“ It was as if I were smitten by a cold rush of ice, when the truth was made quite plain to me. It was that half-light of evening, which is neither day nor night, when the early moon vies with the dying sunlight. And I saw the monster writhing coils of a great serpent rise dripping from the water and enfold the broken stump of a tree.
I knew now that the deer was doomed; and so illogical is human nature that I experienced two emotions: terror of the reptile and pity for the beast that but a moment since I myself would have gladly slain for food. ”

“ Indeed, it was only the thought that Amos Baverstock or one of the others would get up to go, and then discover me, that made me shift from where I had been hiding; and no sooner was I out of earshot than I set off running as if pursued by fifty fiends. I never ran so fast before or since. Over the sand-hills, stumbling amidst the shingle, breaking my way through gorse and hedgerow, I came at last to John Bannister's cabin, lying in a hollow by the sea.
"Mr. Bannister!" I cried. "Mr. Bannister! Something dreadful is about to happen!" ”

“ That no man in a calm moment would have done anything so rash and stupid, I would never for a moment deny. I was, however, very far from calm. If the truth be told, I was afraid. I hid my face like an ostrich--for that is all it comes to.
And as soon as I found myself lying at full length upon those white and aged bones in the darkness of the grave, I realised that I was lost--that it had been far better for me had I fled into the jungle. Amos himself must shift the slab to search the Tomb for the map that he believed he would find within. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I go now to William Rushby, to lay my hand upon the table, knowing for a certainty that I hold the best card in the pack."
"I quite fail to understand you," said I, shaking my head; for all this was so much double Dutch to me.
"You," said Forsyth, "are the best card in the pack. There is no occasion for us to bluff. We have you in our power, as we have also Rushby. Between you, you know the truth. If one will not speak, the other will. If neither speaks, Amos can have his way, and both of you can leave your bones in this savage country, where you have ventured of your own free will." ”

“ Sleeping night by night beneath the stars, wayfarers among the glorious and rugged hills, we had learned the art of comradeship. We found that there was good even in Forsyth and the sleepy, idle Vasco; and fortunate, indeed, is he who never travels in worse company than that of men like Bannister and Rushby.
And so, upon a certain day at sunset, I was strangely conscious of a feeling of sadness when I knew that we were come to the end of our adventures, and that we soon must part. ”

“ We were days upon our march across the Andes. We were obliged to progress by easy stages, because Rushby was half a cripple. There, in the highlands, we found a mild, simple people, engaged in agricultural pursuits, tending large flocks of llamas, or Peruvian sheep. From village to village we went, like beggars, and were always treated with hospitality and kindness.
At last we gained the crestline of those immortal mountains, and could see, both to the north and to the south of us, peak upon peak, rugged and inaccessible, towering like giants into the sky. ”

“ If any one of you comes forth with a rifle in his possession, I shoot him dead upon the spot."
"We share the gold with you?" asked Joshua Trust.
"Not an ounce of it, you fool!" cried Bannister. "Years ago I might have had it for myself, had I wished to play the robber. All this treasure is not yours or mine or anyone's; it belongs by right to the Government of the country. I am neither a smuggler nor a thief. Were it worth less, I might not be so honest; but here are millions, such as to release would be to let loose a great force of evil that would profit no one, and ourselves least of all. ”

“ How had it come to pass that men prized so highly what after all is no more than yellow metal? Here was enough of it, in very truth, to serve the needs of a nation; and here it had lain for four hundred years--and the world was none the worse. How little of this vast treasure would be enough for me, or even Amos Baverstock, in spite of all his greed! ”

“ I prayed to the great God of Right and Justice for deliverance. And yet, how weak is human nature, how little is our faith! For before morning I was struggling like a madman to free myself from my bonds.
The more violently I fought for liberty, the greater pain I suffered; for the hard fibre cut into my flesh until I gave it up, and, overcome by sheer exhaustion, I fell asleep, held upright by my bonds.
I awoke to behold the half-light of approaching day. The plain of grass before me was lost in the mist which, in that weird place, came always at sunset and at dawn. ”

“ We were all hard at work upon our hands and knees, when we were surprised by the sound of a rifle-shot, fired at no great distance in the Wood, in a northerly direction.
Bannister got slowly to his feet, and stood listening; and then, although he turned in my direction, it was as if he spoke quietly to himself.
"One shot," said he. "And one shot only."
That was all he said.
"Trust was never armed," said I.
"That signifies nothing," answered Bannister. "Amos is loaded down by gold. If he carried a rifle, Trust may have wrenched it from his hands." ”

“ And then Amos Baverstock set forward, laughing loudly, with his heavy burden on his back, and a heavier burden still upon his soul. He went alone into the woods, whilst the daylight faded and the shadows flooded the undergrowth; and his loud, mad laughter scared the monkeys and the birds amid the tree-tops; even the jaguar slunk away in fear at the sound of that unholy mirth. ”

“ It occurs to me that fear must be one of the strangest of emotions; for I can honestly say that, now that I was in this hopeless and perilous predicament, I was no longer afraid. Certain that I must fall into the hands of Amos Baverstock, equally uncertain of what then would be my lot, I was resigned to my fate; I was long past apprehension. I still thought of Bannister, and wondered concerning the map for which Amos and Forsyth were looking, but for myself I now cared not a snap of the fingers what became of me ”

“ At the time, of course, I knew nothing of Forsyth's wound, which had delayed Baverstock so long; and when I afterwards came to work the matter out, I arrived at the conclusion that Amos must have left the wood on the very night when I encountered the anaconda. He then returned to the temple, and, finding both the ruins and the village quite deserted, gave unholy vent to his wrath by burning everything that fire could touch. He then came back upon his own tracks, by way of the suspension bridge, drawn to the Red Fish like steel to a magnet, for the man's soul itself was magnetised by gold. ”

“ It was then that John Bannister fired. He told me afterwards that he meant to put Baverstock out of the torture he was suffering both of body and of mind. If that were so, it was a lucky shot; for it killed at once the reptile and the man.
The bullet drilled the anaconda, breaking its spine, and thence pierced the heart of Amos Baverstock. The unhappy wretch vanished from sight upon the instant beneath the water of the pool; but the dying struggles of that gigantic snake were amazing to behold. ”

“ And he was near as naked as I, and we were both so burned by the sun that the whites of our eyes were almost comical, and our hair was long like that of gipsies, and the skin upon our legs and arms had been scratched in scores of places by the thorn-trees in the forest.
"Dick!" he cried again. "I can see it now, though I would never have believed it."
"It is I who am asked to believe the most," said I. "How came you here, of all people in the world?"
"There's a yarn at the back of that," said he. "But, first, you must tell me how you escaped from Amos." ”

“ My own audacity can be explained, I think, by the fact that I was now three parts a savage. I was, as one might say, on friendly terms with danger. Peril and I had sojourned together for so long that I had come to regard even grim Death itself as no such weighty matter. Life was no more to me than to the little wild things that I daily slew for food. And so, for three days, I continued my searching in the jungle, howbeit acting more cautiously than before, making little noise and pausing frequently to listen. ”

“ And each time we heard it, we were filled with dread--the dread that comes naturally to one who finds himself confronted by the supernatural--the same dread that is believed to make the human hair to stand on end in the presence of a ghost.
For Amos Baverstock, body, mind, and soul, was still in the possession of his seven raging devils; and it was as if these evil spirits infested the humid, stifling atmosphere of the very jungle through which we passed in hot pursuit. ”

“ John Bannister had changed greatly since the days when I knew him first. He looked as big and strong as ever, but had become pitifully thin; and I thought his hair was greyer, and there were deeper lines upon his forehead. His mouth I could not see, for he had grown a great beard, more than touched with grey. And this beard, merged into his long moustache, was spread like the beard of a paladin upon his chest.
We directed our way northward in a bee-line, so far as we could judge, towards the ravine where we had left William Rushby ”

“ Hear this history to the end, and see what like of man was he whose charm and peril led me forth from green and sleepy Sussex to adventure in the darkness of those tropic forests that shut out the source of the great River of Mystery, where there are poison, black ignorance, and fell disease, and a man may no more count the dangers that encompass him than the myriads of stinging insects that drone about his ears.
And one thing more: my own life has not been lived without event. It has been my fate to tell a score of times of the enterprise of others ”

“ I wandered for a while somewhat aimlessly amongst the shrubberies that crowned the margin of the sand-hills and the shingle, and then returned to the cabin. As things happened, I must have done so in the nick of time; for, when I had searched in odd corners, as if looking for a hidden thimble, instead of a man of six-foot-four, I went to the threshold, and looking out beyond the gorse, beheld the tall figure of Mr. Gilbert Forsyth, strolling towards me, swinging in his hand his silver-mounted Malacca cane. ”

“ I told him, "Amos tied me to a tree, and left me in the wilderness to starve. And then I fell into the hands of savage men, to whom I shall be ever grateful. From their dwellings in the forest I journeyed alone to Cahazaxa's Temple, and thence across the plain to the Wood of the Red Fish, where I find an old friend, and still believe that I am dreaming. It is months now since I last set eyes upon a white man, and that was Amos Baverstock himself." ”