Kitabı oku: «The Treasure of the Incas: A Story of Adventure in Peru», sayfa 15
"That was so, señor. The people who took over the garden were to go into the house once a week to see that everything was in order; but as this fire broke out only three days after I left, they had not entered it. Everyone says that it must have been fired on purpose, for the flames seem to have burst out in all parts at once. No one in the town thought that I had an enemy in the world, and all have been wondering who could have had a grudge against me. Of course we need not go very far to guess who was at the bottom of it."
"I suppose not, Dias. It must have been those scoundrels we gave such a thrashing to."
"There is no doubt of that, señor. But this time they have got the best of me, for they know very well that I have no proof against them, and that it would be useless to lodge any complaint."
"I am afraid it would, Dias. Is it quite burnt down?"
"The walls are standing, señor. It takes a good deal to burn adobe."
"What do you suppose it would cost to put it in the same condition as before, with the furniture and everything?"
"No great thing, señor; two hundred or two hundred and fifty dollars. It would not be as much as that if it hadn't been that Maria had left her festa dresses and her silver trinkets behind. There was not much furniture in the house; but I think I could replace everything for about two hundred dollars, and I have a good deal more than that laid by."
"I shall certainly make that up to you, Dias. It was entirely your kindness in deciding to take us on Mr. Barnett's recommendation, and to undertake this journey, that brought the ill-will of these scoundrels upon you. Of course it is of no use doing anything now, but when our search is over I shall certainly see that you are not in any way the loser."
"No, señor; if I could not replace it myself I might accept your kind offer, but I can do it without breaking very heavily into my savings. And indeed their attack on me was the outcome of an old grudge. I have been long regarded as a fortunate man, and truly I have been so. If there was a job for five mules, and I was disengaged, I always had the first offer."
"But that was not fortune, Dias; that was because you were known to be wholly trustworthy."
"There are few muleteers who are not so, señor; it is rarely indeed that muleteers are false to their trust. I can scarce remember an instance. We Indians have our faults, but we are honest."
"Well, perhaps your getting the first job to go with foreign travellers may have been a piece of good fortune, but it is because these were so well satisfied with you that others engaged you. Trustworthiness is not the only thing wanted in a muleteer; willingness, cheerfulness, and a readiness to oblige are almost as important for the comfort of travellers. Well, do you think these fellows will try and play you another trick, Dias?"
"I hope they will," Dias said savagely, "that is, if they don't have too much odds against me. I owe them a big score now, for twice they have got the better of me. I should like to get even with them."
"Well, Dias, I hope they won't try anything of the sort. If anything should happen to you, I should not only be extremely sorry for your sake and your wife's, but it would destroy the last chance I have of carrying out my search for treasure. Do you think that if I were to go to the consul and lay a complaint against them, on the ground, in the first place, of their attack on you, and now of burning your house, it would have any effect?"
"If you were to make a complaint it might do, señor; it certainly would not were I to do so. A little bribe would, of course, be necessary; you cannot do anything without that. The officials here are all Gamarra's men, and there is not one of them who would not take a bribe. But would it be worth while, as we are only going to stay here a week? And if you got them imprisoned they would be out again before I came back, and would be more anxious than ever to get rid of me."
"There is a good deal in that, Dias. As, of course, we shall be away, and starting for home again as soon as we return here, their spite would be directed entirely against you."
"I hope, señors, that while you stop here you will never go out without your pistols. It is against you they have a grudge now more than me; it was owing to you that they failed in killing me."
"We will do so; and we won't carry sticks this time, so that if they see us going along they will think we are unarmed."
Whenever they went out after dark, indeed, Harry and Bertie had an idea that they were followed, and on their way home each invariably carried a cocked pistol in his pocket, ready for instant use. It was well that they did so, for on returning late one evening from Señor Pasquez, four men suddenly sprang out upon them.
They were on their guard, and their arms went up in an instant, and two shots were fired. As the pistols were almost touching the men's heads when the trigger was pulled, both the assailants dropped dead, and the others at once took to their heels.
"There are two of Dias's enemies wiped out," Harry said quietly. "I hope the others will give us a chance before we leave. Well, let us walk on before the watch comes along. It would ruin our plans altogether if we were kept here for an indefinite time while enquiries are being made."
The next morning they heard from their waiter at breakfast that two men had been found dead in the street.
"They are muleteers," he said, "but are known to be bad characters, and are suspected of having been concerned in several murders. It is evident that they made a mistake this time, and have got what they deserved. They are known to be associated with others. There were five of them; one was killed in a knife fight some months ago, and a search has been made for the others, but it is not likely that they will be caught. They were probably concerned in the affair, and knowing that they would be suspected of having a hand in this, and that their character will go against them, I expect they went off at once to the foot of the hills, and won't be heard of again for some time to come."
"I think it a pity they were not all shot. It is a shame that in a town like this people cannot walk in the streets after dark without the risk of being assassinated."
Dias was very pleased when, on coming up that morning, he heard of what had happened. He quite agreed that the other men would almost certainly have taken to the mountains.
"Even if they have not, señor, you are safe from another attack. Now they know that you carry pistols, and are prepared for them, they will let you alone."
"When we come back here, Dias, we will give you a brace of our pistols, and I trust you will carry them in your pocket ready for use after dark, whether you are in Lima or at Miraflores."
"Thank you, señor. I do not think they are likely to show their faces here again for a long time; but at any rate I will be on my guard, and will gratefully accept your offer of the pistols. Now, señors, I must set to work to-day to get in our stores for the next journey. I have made a list of what we shall want."
"Well, I have plenty of money, Dias, for I find two remittances from home awaiting me here. We have already bought two double-barrelled guns and a stock of ammunition, principally buck-shot, for we shall not be doing much big game shooting. We can always buy food at the sea-side villages."
Three days later all was in readiness. The mules were brought up from Miraflores by José, accompanied by Maria, and an early start was made on the following morning.
CHAPTER XIV
THE CASTLE OF THE DEMONS
"To-morrow, señor," Dias said, "you will see the spot I was telling you about, where, as the traditions say, the spirits of our ancestors inhabit the ruins of a building so old, that it was ancient when the Incas first came here. They are still there, and men who have been rash enough to approach the spot have been found torn to pieces as if by wild beasts; but none go near now."
"Did the Spaniards never go there?"
"I know not, sir; but 'tis likely they never even heard of it. The country is all dry and barren, and there were no mines to tempt them. The Indians never speak of it; those who were alive when the Spaniards came had some reasons for not doing so; and even now you could go to the nearest village, which lies more than twenty miles away, and ask the people about it, but they would only say that they had never heard of it, that no such place existed, for they believe that even to speak of it would bring dire disaster. We Indians are Christians; the Spaniards made us so. We make the sign of the cross, and we bow before their images and pictures, and once a year we go to their churches; but among the tribes east of the mountains that is all. We believe in the traditions of our fathers and in the demons of the forest; and though on this side of the hills, where the Spaniards held a tight grip upon us, the people have well-nigh forgotten their old faith, they still believe in many of the tales they have learned from their fathers, and this of the Castle of the Demons, as it is called, is as strong as ever in these parts."
"Have you ever seen the castle, Dias?"
"I have seen it, señor. There is only one point from which it is visible. We shall go there to-morrow, it is ten miles from here. The castle lies in a rift of the rock. I should say that in ancient times this opened to the sea, but the building closed the entrance. Whatever it may have been, it does not rise above the summit of the cliff, which goes down as straight as a wall for miles on the sea-face. The rift on the land side of the castle seems to have a width of about fifty feet, and I could see openings which were, I suppose, windows. The rocks on each side are higher than the castle itself, so that anyone coming along would not see it until he looked down upon it."
"But of course it is visible from the sea, Dias?"
"It would have been visible in the old days without a doubt, señor, but it cannot be seen now. The stones are the colour of the rocks beside them. They are stained and broken, and unless a boat went along within a very short distance none would dream that there was a break in the cliff there. I heard that from a fisherman whose boat was driven in by a gale and well-nigh lost. He said that he could see that the stones, which are very large—much larger than any of those in the remains of the buildings of the Incas—were not in regular lines."
"It is very strange that anyone should have taken the trouble to build a place in such a singular position. Is there not any legend as to its construction?"
"There is a tradition, señor, that it was built as a prison, by the king of those times, a thousand years before the Spaniards came, and even before the people whom the Incas conquered came into the land, and that it was a place of imprisonment, some say of a wife, others of a son, who had rebelled against him. Some say that it was built by the demons, but as it happened long before our people came here, none can know."
"Well, Dias, it seems to me that this old place is very likely to have been used as a hiding-place for treasure. As to these tales about demons, of course they are ridiculous. I took your advice when we were being opposed by fierce Indians, but when it is a question of demons, I can trust to my revolvers and rifles against a legion of them."
"Well, señor, you are the master. I have led you here as I promised. There may be treasure here or there may not. If you will go, you must; but I pray you not to command me to go with you. I would have followed you to the death through the swamps and forests on the other side, but I dare not risk being torn to death by demons and being left without burial."
"I do not press you to go, Dias. I respect your convictions, though I do not share in them. I have had a year of travel with you, and we have had many adventures together. This will be my last before I return home. Here at least there seems to me a chance of finding treasure, an infinitely better chance than any we have had, except in the gold valley. Here is a mysterious castle, of whose very existence the Spaniards seem never to have heard. It is just the place where treasure might be hidden. If it has guardians, they must be human, and also there can be but few. The urgent necessity for secrecy was so great, that it must, like all the other secrets, have been confided to a few only. Maybe but one or two old men are there, of whom certainly I need not be afraid. I have told you why I came here, and why I feel so anxious to find a valuable mine, or part of the lost treasures of the Incas. So far I have failed altogether, and I should be a fool as well as a coward were I not ready to run some slight risk in searching this mysterious castle."
"So be it, señor. I say not that you may not succeed. It may be that the demons have no power over white men. If you go and return safely I will go with you, and, should you find treasure, aid you to carry it away. I will lead you to within two miles of it, and will wait three days for your return. If you come not then, I will return to my place and mourn for you."
"Very well, Dias, you may count upon my return long before the three days are up. Now, in the first place, take me to the point from which I can have a view of the castle."
"We have had a long journey to-day, señor, and it is two hours' journey from here. We had better rest and go in the morning."
Harry nodded.
"We will be off early. You say it is ten miles from the spot where we shall see it. If we start at daybreak I can be there before noon, which will give me plenty of time for a first look round the place. We have got some torches left. I shall want them, for possibly there may be some chambers underground into which we shall have to penetrate. We may take it as certain that, whether the old people hid a great treasure from the Incas, or the Incas hid one from the Spaniards, they did not leave it about in rooms, but stowed it away in vaults like those we saw at Pachacamac, and these will certainly want a lot of looking for."
"I will help you look, señor, and will work there as long as you like in the search, if you return and tell me that you have seen and heard nothing of the demons that are said to be there. I am not afraid of danger when I know that it is men that we have to do with. But I dread being strangled and torn, as the legends say that all who have ventured here have been."
"But according to your own account, Dias," Bertie laughed, "that was long, long ago, and the demons may have got tired of guarding a place that no one came near, and have gone elsewhere in search of victims."
Dias shook his head gravely. In spite of his life as a muleteer, and his acquaintance with Englishmen, he was as superstitious as the rest of his countrymen. The nominal Christianity enforced by the Spaniards upon the natives was but skin-deep, and thus they clung with undying fidelity to the superstitions and traditions that had been handed down from generation to generation, and had been preserved with a tenacity that even the tortures of the Spaniards had failed to shake. The failure to obtain the gold which they confidently expected to find in the valley had still further strengthened his belief that it was destined that these treasures should never be discovered; and although when there he had listened gravely to Harry's explanations of the manner in which the lake had been formed, his own conviction that all this was the work of demons had been unshaken. If, then, a spot, which even the tradition handed down to him had in no way connected with the guardianship of demons, was so firmly watched, how much more must this be so at a spot which all legends agreed was inhabited by demons, and had been the scene of so many executions by them of those who had ventured near.
As Bertie and his brother sat together by the fire that evening after the others had retired to rest, they talked long over the matter; for just as when they had approached the gold valley, their excitement had increased with every day's journey. Harry felt that this was his last chance, his only hope of gaining the object for which he had left England.
"It is strange, Harry," Bertie said, "that the natives should believe these absurd stories about demons. Dias seems, in every other way, as sensible a fellow as one can want to meet, but in this respect he is as bad as any of them."
"It is not extraordinary, Bertie, if you remember that it is not so very long ago since people at home believed in witches who sailed through the air to take part in diabolic ceremonies, and brought about the death of anyone by sticking pins into a little waxen image, and that even now the peasantry in out-of-the-way parts of the country still hold that some old women bewitch cows, and prevent milk turning into butter however long they may continue churning. Fairy superstitions have not quite disappeared, and the belief in ghosts is very wide-spread.
"When you think of that it is not surprising that these poor ignorant natives still have implicit faith in the traditions of their ancestors. It is possible that this old place is still inhabited by Indians, who have been its guardians for ages, and if not now, may have had charge of it long after the Spaniards came here, and murdered any who ventured to approach the place. We know that the tradition of the gold valley has been faithfully maintained in the family of Dias; this may also be the case in the family to which the guardianship of this old place was entrusted, but to my mind it is less likely. In the case of the gold valley there was nothing for those in the secret to do but to hold their tongues; but to supply guardians to this place from generation to generation must have been a much more irksome task, and it may have been abandoned, either from the dislike of those who had to spend their lives in such a monotonous business, or by their families dying out. I certainly don't want to have a fight with men who are only following orders passed down to them for hundreds of years. If they attack us, we shall have to fight; but I sincerely trust that we may find the place deserted, for, fight or no fight, I mean to get the treasure if it is there."
"I should think so," Bertie agreed. "The treasure is absolutely of no use to them, and may be no end of use to you."
"To both of us, Bertie. If there is a treasure, you may be sure it is a large one, ample for both of us, and to spare. Of course we shall have trouble in getting it away—the gold would be invaluable to any of these rascally adventurers who are a curse to Peru. I really want to see the place, even putting aside the question of the treasure, for it must have been extraordinarily well hidden if the Spaniards never came upon it; and I think there can be no doubt whatever that in this respect the traditions must be true. The whole thing would have been upset if the Spaniards had once paid a visit there, for, from what we saw at Pachacamac and Cuzco, they spared no exertions whatever to root out likely hiding-places. The treasure, if there is one, will be difficult to find, but I have got nearly a year yet, and if necessary I will spend the whole of it in digging. Dias could go and get provisions for us. Of course he must not always go to the same place. Sometimes he can go up to Huaura, sometimes down to Chancay or Ancon. This place, he has told me, lies a mile or two south of the Salinas promontory, which would partly account for its escaping notice, for the road from Huaura, as we see on the map, skirts the foot of the hill, and goes straight on to Chancay and Ancon, and there is no earthly reason why anyone should go out to the promontory. People here don't leave the roads and travel eight or ten miles merely to look at the ocean, especially when by following the straight line they would see it without trouble. Well, we have both had hard work during the past year, what with felling trees to make bridges, chopping logs for fires, making roads practicable by moving rocks out of the way, occasionally using our picks where Dias thought that there was a lode, and carrying mules' burdens up and down steep places.
"Altogether it has been a sort of backwoodsman's life, and if there are treasure-vaults in this place I think we shall be able to get at them, however thick and heavy the stones may be on the top of them."
"I am game," Bertie said. "There is a lot more excitement in working when possibly a treasure lies under your feet than in chopping away at trees, some of which are so hard as almost to turn the edge of an axe. The place cannot be very large, so it won't take us very long if we are obliged to tear up every foot of it. I suppose there cannot be above three feet of stone over the mouths of any of these vaults."
"I think, Bertie, that when we have once investigated the place and settled on our plans, we had better send Dias and José down to Callao to get three or four kegs of powder and some boring tools, besides a supply of provisions. We should get on a lot faster with these than with only pickaxes. We shall want a couple of strong iron crowbars for lifting slabs of stone, and of course some fuse for the mines."
"We should have to be careful not to put too much powder in, so as not to bring the whole thing down about our ears."
"Oh, we should not want to make a mine of that sort, but only to blast the stone as they do in quarries and mines. We should have to make a hole to begin with, by means of our picks and crowbars, in one corner of the room, two or three feet wide; then we must make a couple of holes the size of the boring tool, a foot or so away, according to the hardness of the ground, put in charges and fire them, and in that way blow down the rock into the hole we had made; and so we should go on until we had done the whole floor. Of course, the bigger the hole we first make—that is to say, the wider the face it has—the easier we shall blow the stone down afterwards. I have watched them blasting stone at Portland, and at some galleries they were making at Gibraltar, and I know pretty well how it is done. Of course it is hard work driving the borers down, for that we shall want two or three sledges of different weights. It will make our arms ache at first, but after a week or two we shall be able to stick to it fairly well. Now we had better turn in. We shall start at daybreak tomorrow. It will take us two hours to reach the spot from which Dias said we could see the place, and another three hours to get to the castle. That will give us a long afternoon to take our first look over it."
"There, señor," Dias said, when at eight o'clock in the morning they stopped on a projecting spur of the hill, "that is the castle!"
From where they stood they could see that the ground fell away into what was at first a mere depression, but gradually deepened into a valley half a mile wide. Still farther down the sides became more precipitous, and in the distance the valley was closed in by rock walls, and appeared to come to an end. That it did not do so was evident from a streak of bright green in the centre of the valley, showing that a small stream must run down it. From the point at which they stood they could see the level line of the plateau near the cliff facing the sea, and on the surface of this a dark zigzag line marked the course of the ravine. Then, when apparently close to the termination of the flat land by the cliffs, the dark streak widened out somewhat. Through a small but powerful telescope which Harry carried he could make out distinctly the upper part of what might be a house.
"It is a strange-looking place for a castle to be built," he said, "but it quite answers to your description, Dias. There are certainly some openings, which may have been windows. I am sure no one looking from here, and ignorant that such a place existed, would notice it, and of course from the valley it could not be seen at all. Even from this height I do not think I can see more than ten or twelve feet of the upper part. But surely it must be noticeable to anyone coming along the cliffs?"
"It may be, señor, but I cannot say. Certainly no native would go along there even in the daytime. Still, it does seem likely that in the Spanish time some must have ridden along the top of the cliffs, and if they had seen the castle it would certainly have been searched. Assuredly it has not been so. I have been at Ancon and Salinas many times, and have talked with the people there. They would never speak on the subject to one of white blood, but knowing that I was of native blood, and belonged to one of the families to whom the secret could be strictly trusted, they were ready enough to talk about the Castle of Demons. Had the Spaniards ever searched it they would have known, and the place would no longer be feared; but all say that from the time of the conquest by the Spaniards no living being has, as far as is known, entered it."
"Then the Incas knew of it, Dias?"
"I think so, señor, though I have not heard that any of them ever lived there; but tradition says that the vessel in which a great store of treasure was sent away from Pachacamac, and which, as is proved by Spanish writings, was never heard of afterwards, and doubtless was sunk in a great storm that came on two or three days after it sailed, was intended to be landed and hidden in this castle, which they thought might well escape the observation of the Spaniards."
"And even among your traditions there is no allusion to what became of this treasure ship?"
"No, señor; all traditions say that it was never heard of from the day it sailed. Had it landed at that castle the secret would have been handed down to some of the native families, just as that of the golden valley and of other hidden treasures has been. But there can be no doubt that the ship was lost with all her treasure."
"Well, we need not talk any more about it now, Dias; we shall learn nothing more, however long we stay here and stare at it."
They stopped half an hour for breakfast and then rode down the valley. When they got near the spot where it closed in Harry saw by the pallor on the native's face that he was beginning to be greatly alarmed.
"You had better stop here, Dias. My brother and I will go on and explore this ravine and have a look at the place. We will take some ropes with us, for the ravine may be blocked by falls of rocks, and we may have to let ourselves down. Evidently the water gets to the sea, or this valley would be a lake like that in the golden ravine, for although it is but a mere driblet of water now, you can see by the banks that a considerable amount comes down in the wet season. How it gets past the castle I don't know; I can only suppose that there is a passage for it underneath the building. We will take both our guns, Bertie, and our pistols. That there are no demons we are quite sure, but the place may have been used as a hiding-place for outlaws and brigands, who could find no better spot, as there was no fear whatever of its being discovered. We will take some bread and meat in our haversacks and a flask of spirits. Perhaps we shall be away longer than we expect, Dias, but at any rate we will not stop there after dark."
Tears were in the Indian's eyes as Harry and Bertie said good-bye to him and started, and when he saw them enter the ravine he sat down with his elbows on his knees and cried unrestrainedly. His wife went up to him and put her hand on his shoulder.
"Do not sorrow, Dias; as for me, I have no fear, though I love them as well as you do. I do not say that there may not be demons in the castle—everyone says there are;—but though these may strangle our people who break the orders that were given that none should go near, I do not believe they can hurt our white friends. You saw that they had no fear; you know how brave they are, and how they laughed at the idea of the demons having any power over them. Do you think I could smile and talk if I thought they were in danger? Still, as there is no need to prepare dinner yet, I will tell my beads over and over again. We shall know if any harm comes to them if we hear them fire their guns, for it is certain that they would do so. Even if a legion of demons attacked them they would never run away, but would fight till the last."
"I love them," Dias said; "I love them as my own sons. At first, when they came to me from Señor Barriett, it was for his sake that I consented to accompany and aid them; but from that night when they saved my life by rushing, with no weapons save their sticks, into the midst of five men with drawn knives, I felt how noble they were, and I loved them not only for the sake of my life, but for their bravery. Since then my feelings have grown every day. Have they not treated us as equals, as they would do people of their own race—us who, by every Peruvian with white blood in his veins, are looked down upon?"
"It is true, Dias. They have laughed and joked with us, and have treated me with as much respect as if I had been of pure Spanish blood, and have always done everything they could to make things easy for me. I will not believe God and the Holy Virgin can permit them to be overpowered by the evil ones. Should it be otherwise, should they never return, I should be inconsolable. It would be to me as if you yourself had died, and I should be ready to stab myself to the heart at the thought that we had brought them here."
"I could not live after it either, Maria; but, as you say, I will trust that God will protect them."
He cut down two rods and fastened them together in the form of a cross, and then he and his wife knelt before it and repeated innumerable paternosters and Ave Marias, crossing themselves as they did so.
José, as soon as he had removed the burdens from the mules and turned them out to graze at the edge of the streamlet, came and joined them in their supplications, occasionally breaking off from the repetition of the only prayers he knew, and in his native language imploring the saints to protect their friends.
