I felt, at that moment, so despondent that I was disposed to burst into tears, to cry like a child through utter disappointment. For a minute we discussed the matter between ourselves, and tried in vain to see one ray of daylight. Look at it as we might, from every aspect, the situation seemed just about as bad as it could be.

Bannister himself was too exhausted to continue the pursuit, and Rushby was a wounded man, whom, in any case, we dared not again leave alone in the ravine.

"What is to be done?" I asked. And there was something so woeful in my expression that Bannister smiled.

"We must make the best of a bad business, Dick," said he. "After all, Rushby's life is of more account than the Treasure. Clearly, it is not safe for us to remain here in open country. We must return to the Wood, and find a place where we can hide. A few hours' rest, and I shall have strength enough to go on; but I am not disposed to leave my comrade until his life is out of danger."

As he spoke, he placed a hand upon Rushby's shoulder; and I saw by the look in the boatswain's face that he thought no less of John Bannister than I.

"You'll not wait for me, sir," the boatswain answered. "I want nothing better than to see Amos run to earth; for I have not forgotten the voyage of the Mary Greenfield, when mainly through him I was cast into irons. Besides, it's my fault that he has now got the map, and I'll never cease to blame myself for that."

"Forget it all!" said Bannister. "And as for future plans, they can wait till we are rested. The sooner we are out of this place the better; for we know not what Baverstock may do."

Then and there we gathered together what little baggage we possessed, as well as everything that Amos had left behind him when he had hurried from the camp. There were two rifles between us--and we wanted no more, since Rushby was a casualty; but we could find only ten rounds of ammunition, and I was without my blow-pipe.

I loaded myself with the rifles and equipment, whereas Bannister picked up Rushby in his arms and carried him into the Wood. There we had not long to search before we found a good hiding-place, a little hollow in the midst of the thickets, where, Bannister told us, a jaguar had reared her cubs. There was a stream near by, that connected, beyond doubt, with the Brook of Scarlet Pebbles, and we were therefore well supplied with water.

Almost at once the three of us fell fast asleep. For myself, I had never been so fatigued; and yet I awoke at daybreak, and immediately, without disturbing my companions, went forth in search of food, and did not return until I had as many wild fruits and berries as I could conveniently carry in Bannister's haversack. I then made a fire; and whilst I was thus employed the other two awakened.

Bannister's first office was to attend to the boatswain's wound. This he washed and dressed--very skilfully, I thought--and then ordered Rushby to lie quite still and to make no attempt to move.

Whilst we were eating we talked of what was best to do; and in this argument the boatswain took a leading part. He had a mind of his own, and was determined, from the first, to have his way.

He told us that he was well enough where he was, if we left him food to eat and a pannikin of water within reach, so that there would be no need for him to move. As for John Bannister and me, we must take the two rifles and what ammunition there was, and set forward without delay towards the Big Fish, to find Baverstock and his three companions.

"Though the odds are two to one against you," he added, "that will make no difference. Stalk him, as you would a wild beast, and put a bullet through the scoundrel, as he comes up from the vault. This evening he will be there or thereabouts. Our one consolation is that he has no means of taking the Treasure away. But you must be quick, sir; for I'm open to a wager that Baverstock goes back across the plain, to find forest Indians to work for him under the whip, that he may carry all this gold to one of the rivers, and thence down-stream in more than one canoe."

There was little question that William Rushby had got the hang of the affair. Indeed, all that he predicted was, or might have been, the truth. It was not so much, I think, because Bannister wished to thwart his ancient enemy, as because he desired to see for himself how the whole business would end, that we set forward into the Wood at about midday, our destination being the Red Fish itself.

Bannister told me that you could not reach the Treasure from the northern side, because the brook there opened out into a swamp, where you could sink to the neck in mud, to be eaten alive by leeches. It was therefore necessary for us to journey by a circuitous route towards the west, until we came upon the Brook of Scarlet Pebbles, somewhere to the south of the tunnel that led to the Fish. However, we had the sun to guide us, and both Bannister and I were well acquainted with the Wood.

And now, for once, I must tell my story from a point of view other than my own, and follow, for a few hours, the fortunes of Amos Baverstock. Afterwards, I was destined to behold with my own eyes the raving lunacy of that unhappy man, and to witness the spectacle of a tragedy, at once gruesome and fantastic. But first, I tell the story as I heard it from the lips of Mr. Forsyth; and very weird it is.

With the map in his possession, Amos set forth without delay to feast his eyes upon the Treasure. Though his three companions were overcome by fatigue, and there was but half an hour that evening before sunset, the hunchback would not halt until darkness compelled him to do so; and that night the excited and disordered condition of his mind would not allow him to sleep.

He had them up in the small hours that they might be ready to start at daybreak; and they struck the Brook of Scarlet Pebbles early that morning, but a few miles to the north of the Big Fish.

Forsyth afterwards told us that all that day Amos never spoke, but forged ahead with the map in his hand, the others following as best they could. The man was now blinded by his own greed and avarice. He seemed alike incapable of fatigue and insensible to physical pain; for he rushed forward with such mad impetuosity that he was cut to pieces on the thorns, and was soon bleeding profusely from a score of places.

He came, on a sudden, upon the swamp, into which he plunged so recklessly that he was waist-deep before he knew it. Then, to his great alarm, he found that he was unable to move. He was held tight in the mud, and was at once attacked by scores of little leeches.

He threw up his arms into the air like a drowning man, crying out piteously for help. Forsyth, as cool as ever--as I can well imagine--at once cut down a long bamboo, and held this out to Amos, who was eventually hauled back to safety, though covered from head to foot in mud.

The leeches they were obliged to cut away from him with knives; and all the time the man reviled them for not making greater haste, telling them repeatedly that they were but a short distance from the Treasure, upon which he was determined to set eyes that very day.

It was then that his companions, for the first time, suspected that the man's mind was disordered; for Amos talked like a lunatic, and there was a strange look in his eyes. For instance, he whipped round upon Forsyth and told him that he had ever been a stumbling-block, with his refined manners and his London airs, since the expedition started from Caracas. At which Forsyth laughed aloud.

"Your memory is something short," said he. "Less than five minutes ago I saved your life. You were sinking even as I pulled you out. Had it not been for me, you would have been drowned in black, stinking mud, and your corpse devoured by leeches."

At that, Amos burst into the wild and hideous laughter of a madman.

"Liar!" he shrieked. "You saved the map! It was not me you saved; it was the map--and without risk to yourself. Much good may it do you! I shall see to it that you profit nothing. Trust Amos Baverstock for that!"

And then he laughed again, and again called Forsyth "Liar!"

At the time they thought little or nothing of all this, the high talk of an excited man. They believed him to be in one of his fits of uncontrollable anger, when he could never rightly be held responsible for either his actions or his words. But they left him as he was, sticky with the black mud, with many horrid little leeches still glued upon his skin, that was already all blood-stained from the thorns. And they made a circuit of the swamp towards the east, and came suddenly upon the open place where the Red Fish stood forth from the ground, with opened mouth, as if in the act of leaping from the water.

They had no need to cast about them, as I had done, in order to find the entrance to the vault; for I had left traces as plain as any printed book to read, and the flowers and ferns that I had planted were not yet so well established that they looked quite natural.

Amos rushed in like a mad dog, and in feverish haste fell to working with his knife, scattering broadcast the soft, rich soil that lay between the rocks. In this task he was assisted by the others--for now they were all near as wild with excitement as Amos himself. In a little time they had the slab laid bare; then they threw it backwards, so that they beheld the stone steps leading downward to the vault.

They had no need to make a torch, as I had done, since they had always carried with them a small collapsible lantern, and with this in one hand and the map in the other, Amos led the way down the steps, through the ante-chamber where the floor was paved with ingots, and thence into the great vault below.

And, thereupon, there is little doubt that Amos Baverstock went wholly mad. He rushed here and there, yelling like a fiend. He snatched up the gold in handfuls--the drinking vessels, the rings and bracelets and the ingots--and cast them, in a kind of frenzy, right and left, all the time shouting and dancing and filling that great chamber with the echoes of his laughter.

Then he filled his arms with ingots, and tied these together with a rifle-sling, so that they resembled a great golden faggot, and weighed far more than any normal man could carry. For the time being, he knew not what he did; but was possessed of seven devils that were brothers, and more like to one another than in general brothers are; and their names were Avarice, Violence, Jealousy, Cruelty, Revenge, Cowardice, and Cunning. Forsyth and the others regarded him amazed.

Amos dashed up the stairway, carrying his great load upon his crooked back. When he reached the open air, he threw his bundle down upon the ground, and then turned an ear to listen at the stairhead.

He heard Forsyth, Trust, and Vasco ascending in pursuit of him; and then again he burst into his madman's laughter, and, laying hold of the slab, hurled it back into its place, and rolled a great boulder upon the top of it; for his strength was not his own, but that of all the seven devils that were brothers who possessed him.

"Lie there and rot!" he shouted. And they below heard his footsteps as he danced upon the stone.

They cried out to him to be merciful and to release them; but he only laughed the more, telling them that he was going alone across the plain to find Indian porters to carry the Treasure through the wilderness, and that he would not return for months--by which time they three would be dead--dead as Orellano's soldier--starved to death in the very midst of the gold they had endured so much to gain.

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. The very Wild was filled with terror--all save the great and stealthy snake that lay coiled in silence in the cool woodland pool, more evil even than Amos, more strong than all his seven devils, more cruel than Death itself.