The Golden Magnet Part 47

when I felt two hands at my throat, my head bent back, a knee forced into my chest, and there in that black darkness I lay for a few minutes quite stupid, calling myself all the fools I could think of for helping someone on board that I knew now was not you.

"That was rather ticklish work, being choked as I was, Mas'r Harry,"

said Tom, with his pale face flus.h.i.+ng up, and his eyes brightening with the recollection; "but above all things, I couldn't help feeling then that, if I did get a p.r.i.c.k with a knife, I deserved it for being such a donkey. Then I got thinking about Sally Smith, and wis.h.i.+ng that we had parted better friends; then about you and Miss Lilla, and about how all the gold would be lost; and then I turned savage, and seemed to see blood, as I made up my mind that, if you didn't have the treasure, the Don shouldn't, for I'd upset the canoe and sink it all first for the crockydiles.

"I don't know what I said, and I don't much recollect what I did, only that fox ever so long there was a reg'lar struggle going on, which made that little canoe rock so that I expected every moment it would be overset; but I s'pose we both meant that it shouldn't: and at last we were lying quite still on the gold, with all round us black and quiet as my lord's vault in the old churchyard at home. Garcia had got tight hold of my hands, and I kept him by that means so that he couldn't use his sting--I mean his knife--you know, Mas'r Harry.

"It seemed to me at last that my best plan was to lie still and wait till he give me a chance; for after one or two struggles I only found that I was nowhere, and ever so much weaker; so I did lie still, waiting for a chance, and wondering that Mas'r Landell didn't come and lend me a hand.

"All at once there came a horrible thought to me, and that was--ah!

there were two horrible thoughts--that you had missed the canoe and had gone down, and that the raft had broke away from the gold canoe while we were jerking and rocking about, and that I was left alone here on this big river, with the Don waiting for a chance to send that knife of his through me.

"Now, you needn't go thinking it was because I cared anything about you, Mas'r Harry," continued Tom in a sulky voice, "for it wasn't that: it was only just because I was a weak great b.o.o.by, and got a wondering what your poor mother would say when I got home, and then, I couldn't help it, if I didn't get crying away like a great girl kep' in at school, for I don't know how long, and the canoe gliding away all the time on the river.

"Getting rid of all that warm water made me less soft; and when Mas'r Garcia got struggling again I give him two or three such wipes on the head as must have wound him up a bit; and then, after nearly having the boat over again, there we lay for hour after hour in the thick darkness, getting stiff as stiff, as we kep' one another from doing mischief. And then at last came the light, with the fog hanging over the river, thick as the old washus at home when Sally Smith took off the copper-lid and got stirring up the clothes. Then the sun came cutting through the mist, chopping it up like golden wires through a cake of soap. There was the green stuff like a hedge on both sides of the river, the parrots a-screaming, the crockydiles crawling on to the mud-banks or floating down, the birds a-fis.h.i.+ng, and all looking as bright as could be, while my heart was black as a furnace-hole, Mas'r Harry, and that black-looking Don was close aside me.

"I ain't of a murderous disposition, Mas'r Harry, but I felt very nasty then, in that bright, clear morning, though all the time I was thinking what a nice place this world would be if it wasn't for wild beasts, and men as makes themselves worse; for there was that Don's eye saying as plain as could be:--

"'There ain't room enough in this here canoe for both of us, young man!'

"'Then it's you as must go out of it, Don Spaniard,' says my eyes.

"'No; it's you as must go out of it, you beggarly little soap-boiling Englishman,' says his eyes.

"'It's my Mas'r Harry's gold, and if he's gone to the crockydiles I'll save the treasure for his Miss Lilla and the old folks--so now, then!'

says my eyes.

"And all this, you know, was without a word being spoke; when all at once if he didn't make a sort of a jump, and before I knew where we were he was at one end of the canoe and I was at the other.

"Well, you may say that was a good thing. But it wasn't; for as I scrambled up there he was with both guns at his end, and me with nothing but my fisties.

"I saw through his dodge now, but it was too late; and in the next few moments I thought three things:--

"'Shall I sit still like a man and let him shoot me?'

"'Shall I rock the canoe over and let it sink?'

"'Shall I go at him?'

"I hadn't pluck enough to sit still and be shot, Mas'r Harry, for you know what a cur I always was; and I thought it a pity to sink the canoe in case you, if you were alive, or Mas'r Landell, might come back to look for it. So I made up my mind to the last, being bristly, and, with my monkey up, I dashed at him.

"_Bang_! He got a shot at me, and I felt just as if some one had hit me a blow with a stick hard enough to make me savage; but it didn't stop me a bit, for I reached at him such a crack with my double fist just as he struck his knife into me; and then we were overboard and struggling together in the sunlit water, making it splash up all around.

"'It's all over with you, Tom!' I said to myself; for as we rose to the surface after our plunge he got one arm free, his knife was lifted, and I looked him full in the face as I felt, though I didn't say it--'You cowardly beggar! why can't you fight like a man with your fists?'

"The next moment he must have struck that knife into me again, when I never see such a horrible change in my life as come over his face--from savage joy to fear--for in a flash he let go the knife, shrieked horribly, and half-forced himself out of the water, leaving me free, when, with a terrible fear on me that the crockydiles were at him, I swum for the canoe; and how, I don't know, I managed to get in, with hundreds of tiny little fish leaping and darting at me like a shoal of gudgeons, only they nipped pieces out of my hands and feet, which were bare; and if I hadn't been quick they'd have had me to pieces.

"No sooner was I in the canoe than I turned, for Garcia was shrieking horribly in a way that nearly drove me mad to hear him, as he beat, and splashed, and tore about in the water--now down, now up, now fighting this way, now that--wild with fear and despair, for those tiny fish were at him by the thousand; his face and hands were streaming with blood, and I could see that it would be all over with him directly, when, catching up a paddle, I sent the canoe towards him, to pa.s.s close by his hand just as he sank.

"To turn and come back was not many moments' work; but he didn't come up where I expected, and I had to paddle back against stream, but again I missed him, and he went down with a yell, Mas'r Harry, that's been buzzing in my ears ever since--wakes me up of a night, it does, and sends me in a cold perspiration as all the scene comes back again.

"I forgot all about his shooting and knifing me; and, Mas'r Harry, as I hope to get back safe to old England I did all I could to save him when he come up again--silent this time! Did I say him? No, it wasn't him, but a horrible, gashly, bleeding ma.s.s of flesh and bone, writhing and twisting as the little fish hung to it and leaped at it by thousands, tearing him really to pieces before he once more sank under the stream, which was all red with blood.

"I paddled here and I paddled there, frantically, but the body didn't come up again; and then, Mas'r Harry, it seemed to me as if a strong pair of hands had taken hold of the canoe and were twisting it round and round, so that the river and the trees on the banks danced before my eyes, making me that giddy that I fell back and lay, I don't know how long.

"When I opened my eyes again, Mas'r Harry, I thought I was dying, for there was a horrible sick feeling on me--one which lasted ever so long-- till, remembering all about what had taken place, I felt that I had only been fainting; and, raising myself up, I looked on the river for a few minutes, shuddering the while as I tried to leave off thinking about the horrors in it; but try hard as I would, I couldn't help looking--the place having a sort of way for me as if it was pulling me towards it-- and I seemed to see all that going on again, though, perhaps, I'd floated down a good mile since it happened.

"At last I dragged my eyes from the water and they fell upon the packages, and they made me think of you, Mas'r Harry; and, in the hope that you were a long way on ahead, I took up a paddle--thinking, too, at the same time, that if you was alive, as soon as you had got Miss Lilla safe you would come back for me."

I did not speak--I could not just then; for in a flood the recollection of the past came upon me, and taking Tom's hands in mine, for a good ten minutes I sat without speaking.

"Well, Mas'r Harry," continued Tom--but speaking now in a thick, husky voice--"I took up the paddle and then I dropped it again, I was that weak, faint, and in pain; and it seemed to me that before I could do anything else I must wash and bind up a bit.

"One of my hands was terribly crippled from my hurt, but I managed to bind a couple of paddles together; and then, rowing slowly on, I was thinking that my labour had been all in vain unless I could manage still to save the gold, when, happening one day to turn round to look upstream, I saw that, Mas'r Harry, as seemed to give me life, and hope, and strength all in a moment; and you know the rest."

CHAPTER FIFTY.

THE USE OF THE TREASURE.

It is one thing being possessed of a treasure and another knowing what to do with it. Here was I with the fortune, as my uncle called it, of a prince, found, as I had found it, and to which some people may say I had no right, and I often thought so myself. But on the other hand I felt that I could do more good with it than it would do left there in the bed of that stream--so many relics of a superst.i.tion--of a pagan idolatry carried on three hundred years ago. The traditions of its being hidden there had of course been handed down, but it had never been seen since it was buried at the time of the conquest, and all who had a right to it had been dead for ages.

So I comforted myself that I was only the one who had brought it to light, and that it was my duty to put it to as good a purpose as possible, and that I meant to do.

Well, here I had the treasure; but the next thing was, should I be able to keep it?

If the Indians could trace me and dared to come across the river all this distance down and into the civilised region, I knew that my life would not be safe, and that they would have the treasure back at any cost.

But then it was not likely that the simple savages would venture after me even if they could find out where I had come.

Then there were the Spaniards about us. If they knew of the wealth we had in the ordinary house of which we had taken possession they would either get it away by legal means, claiming it as belonging to one or the other government, or else make a regular filibustering descent upon us and secure it by violence, even taking our lives as well.

Secrecy, then, seemed to be the only thing possible; and after a good deal of thinking and planning, my uncle, Tom, and I constructed a little furnace in a corner of the house, after boarding up the window and covering it with blankets as well. Here we purposed to melt down the treasure into long ingots, which we hoped to mould in sand--little, long, golden bars being the most convenient shape in which we could carry our gold.

I knew even then that it was a great pity to destroy what were equally valuable as curiosities as for their intrinsic worth as precious metal; but any attempt to dispose of them would have meant confiscation, and such a treasure was not to be introduced to the notice of strangers with impunity.

My uncle joined with me in lamenting the difficulties of the case, and that we should be under the necessity of melting the cups and plates down; but he urged me to do it as soon as possible, and we soon set to work, carrying on our metal fusing in secret by the help of a crucible and a great deal of saltpetre, which soon helped to bring the heat to a pitch where the gold would melt like so much lead, and then by the help of a strong handle the pot was lifted out and its glowing contents poured forth into the moulds.

The ingots we thus cast had to be filed and the rough projections taken off, the dust and sc.r.a.ps being remelted down with the other portion.

It was a tremendous task, though. The plates we managed pretty easily, but the discs had to be cut up first by means of a great hammer and a cold chisel, and the progress we made upon some days was very small.

The cups, too, were very difficult to manage; and Tom and I used to work exceedingly hard, hammering and breaking the gold into small pieces that would go into the melting-pot. Sometimes our fingers were quite sore with the hammering and filing.

Still we kept on making progress, nervous progress, lest people should find out what we were about; and by slow degrees we added ingot to ingot--little, bright, yellow bar after bar--to one heap, and bar after bar of silver to another heap, which were kept buried under a stone in the floor of one of the rooms.

Over and over again we hesitated before breaking up some beautifully-worked cup, though without exception these had been battered and flattened, perhaps three hundred years ago, for the convenience of carriage and hiding from the Spaniards, who had gone west with such a thirst for gold. Several of the best cups were almost flat, the tough, soft metal having evidently been driven in with blows from stones.

We did not get through our task without alarms; for now and then some kindly-disposed person would call, and then we were obliged to hurriedly conceal our work, smothering the fire, and this perhaps when we were at some particular part of our task. But there was no help for it, as we were compelled to work by daylight for fear of the glow of our furnace-fire taking attention if we attempted anything of the kind by night.