The Golden Magnet Part 17

"What shall we do?" I thought.

For a moment I felt disposed to try and get round some other way, but the slightest movement now was sufficient to bring forth a growl from our invisible enemy; and it was very plain that we had tracked the jaguar to his lair while the boa had escaped.

To have retreated would have been to bring it down upon us; so after a glance at Tom's resolute face I made a sign and we took a step in advance.

Only one; we had time for no more, for with a savage yell the jaguar bounded right at Tom from the opening; we just obtained a glimpse of it, and it was like firing at a streak of something brown pa.s.sing rapidly through the air, but fire I did, both barrels almost simultaneously; and the next moment Tom was knocked down and the jaguar had disappeared amongst the reeds we had but just pa.s.sed.

"Are you hurt, Tom?" I cried anxiously, as I stooped to secure his undischarged gun.

"Hurt!" he exclaimed angrily; "of course I am! Just as if you could have one of them great cats fly at you and knock you over without being hurt! But I ain't killed, Mas'r Harry," he said, rising and shaking himself. "'Them as is born to be hanged won't never be drowned,' and them as is born to be swallowed by crocks won't never be torn to pieces by wild cats. Look out, Mas'r Harry! Give it him again!"

At that moment, snarling and lashing its tail from side to side as it showed us its white teeth, the jaguar now crept back, cat-like, on its belly, as if about to spring, when, with the best aim I could, I gave it both barrels of Tom's gun, and with a convulsive bound the brute rolled over, dead.

"That's hotter than the country, Mas'r Harry!" said Tom. "But we killed him, anyhow; so load up. But, my! Mas'r Harry, what a beauty! And did you see when he showed his teeth?--he was the very image of the Don!"

I did not reply to Tom's remarks; but as I reloaded I could not help admiring the glossy, spotted coat of the great beast I had just slain--a brute whose activity and power must have been immense.

But we had not performed the task we had come to complete. This was something upon which I had not counted; and now, though quite satisfied in my own mind that the serpent had escaped, we left our conquered a.s.sailant and once more began cautiously to pursue the track with guns pointed in advance, but without the expectation of a fresh a.s.sault, when, as if determined to be first this time, Tom suddenly fired at an upraised, threatening head, and it fell upon the monstrous, helpless, writhing coils of the immense serpent.

For it was evident that here the reptile had become too exhausted to continue its retreat, and Tom had administered the _coup de grace_.

It was almost an unnecessary shot, for the jaguar had terribly mangled the serpent, which was half-torn and bitten through in one place where it had been first seized; but even now I felt a strong desire to fire again, as I saw a hideous coil rise slowly and then fall motionless, while for the first time the monstrous proportions of the creature became apparent.

"Don't stir, Mas'r Harry!" cried Tom triumphantly. "Keep watch over 'em, or some one else will swear as he did it. I'll be back in less than half an hour."

Then, before I could utter a word of remonstrance, Tom had dashed off, leaving me to my loathsome wardership. But not for long; he was soon back with four Indians, giving his orders l.u.s.tily, and we stood and looked on while they skinned the trophies.

"Perhaps they'll believe you now, Mas'r Harry," said Tom. "We'll take the skins up in triumph--that we will! But who'd ever have thought of my coming out here to shoot adders a hundred foot long?"

"Say five hundred, Tom," I said laughing.

"Well, ain't he, Mas'r Harry?" cried Tom innocently.

For from the effect of his elation it is probable that his eyes magnified, though, upon the skin being stretched out and measured, it proved to be exactly twenty feet three inches in length, while the reptile's girth was greater than the thigh of a stout, well-built man.

But at last, with our trophies borne in front, we made our way back to the hacienda, the Indians shouting, and the whole of the workpeople turning out to welcome us. But though my uncle expressed pleasure, and took the first opportunity of telling me that he had never for an instant doubted my word, it was plain enough that he was constrained in his manner; while as to Pablo Garcia, I believe that a blow would not have given him greater offence than did this proof which I forced upon him of the truth of my a.s.sertions.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

GOLDEN DREAMS.

I saw Lilla but once alone, and then the encounter was not of my seeking. She came up to me, though, with a sweet, sad expression in her face and a trusting look in her eyes that made my heart bound, as she laid her hands in mine and thanked me for what she called my gallantry; and I was so taken up by her words that I hardly noticed the scowl Garcia gave as he came in. In fact, just then my heart felt so large that in my joy I could have shaken hands with him so warmly that I should have made the bones of that fishy fin of his crack again.

But there was no handshaking: Garcia walking to the window and lighting a cigar, while Lilla hurried from the room, as was now her custom when Garcia came.

The first flush of joy pa.s.sed and I was alone with the half-breed, to feel how impossible any friendly feeling was between us; and seeing that he was disposed to do nothing but stare at me in a half-sneering, half-scowling fashion, I strolled out, paying no heed to the burning sun as I made for the woods, where the trees screened me; and then on and on I went, mile after mile, through the hot steamy twilight, amidst giants of vegetation h.o.a.ry with moss. Beast or reptile, harmless or noxious, troubled me little now, for I was in pursuit of the golden idol of my thoughts, winning it from its concealment, and then, with everything around gilded by its l.u.s.tre, living in a future that was all happiness and joy.

But I was not always dreaming. At times I searched eagerly in places that I thought likely to be the homes of buried Peruvian treasure; without avail, though, for I had no guide--nothing but tradition and the misty phantoms of bygone readings.

To the people at the hacienda my wanderings must have seemed absurd, for though I took my gun I never brought anything back. This day game was in abundance, but I did not heed it--only wandered on till I came to a rugged part of the forest far up the mountain-side, and seated myself on a lump of moss-grown rock in a gloomy, shady spot, tired and discouraged by the thought that I was pursuing a phantom.

What should I do, then? I asked myself. Go, as my uncle advised, to Texas? That meant separation; and yet I knew that I could not stay, and, in spite of all my golden hopes, the future looked very black to me. I kept putting it off, but it would come. I must look the difficulty in the face--the end must arrive; and I laughed bitterly as I thought of my prospect--even if such treasures as I had heard of did exist--of finding either of them in the vast wilds spread for hundreds of miles around.

My meditations were interrupted by the sharp crackle made by a dry twig trampled upon by a foot; there was a rustling noise close behind me, and as I turned I became aware of a face peering out at me from a dense bank of creepers, as a voice whispered:

"Is your gun loaded, Mas'r Harry?"

"You here, Tom!" I exclaimed.

"Course I am!" said Tom indignantly. "What else did I come out here for if it wasn't to take care of you? And a nice game you're carrying on-- playing bo-peep with a fellow! Here you are one minute, and I says to myself, 'He won't go out this morning.' Next moment I look round, and you're gone! But this here sort of thing won't do, sir! If you're going on like this I shall give notice to leave, or else I shall never get back alive."

"Why not?" I said, laughing at his anxious face.

"'Cause of these here rambling ways of yours, sir."

"And if I take care, pray what danger is there in them, Tom?"

"Care--care!" echoed Tom. "Why, that's what you don't take, sir. I'm 'Care,' and you leave me at home. You don't say, 'Come and look after me, Tom,' but go on trusting to yourself, while all the time you're like some one in a dream."

"But what is there to be afraid of, Tom?"

"Sarpints, sir!"

"Pooh, Tom! We can shoot them, eh?--even if they are a hundred feet long! Well, what else?"

Tom grinned before he spoke.

"Jaggers, sir!"

"Seldom out except of a night, Tom."

"Fevers, sir!"

"Only in the low river-side parts, Tom. We're hundreds of feet above the river here."

"Snakes in the gra.s.s, sir!"

"Pooh, Tom! They always glide off when they hear one coming."

"Not my sort, Mas'r Harry," said Tom in an anxious whisper. "They're a dangerous sort, with a kind of captain, and he's a half-breed. If you will have it, and won't listen to reason, you must. Mas'r Harry, there's snakes in the gra.s.s--Indian-looking chaps who watch your every step, sir. You haven't thought it; but I've always been on the look-out, and as they've watched you, I've watched them. But they got behind me to-day, Mas'r Harry, and saw me; and I don't know what to think--whether Muster Garcia has sent 'em, or whether they think you are looking for anything of theirs. You don't think it, Mas'r Harry, but at this very minute they're busy at work watching us."

I started slightly at one of his remarks, but pa.s.sed it off lightly.

"Pooh, Tom!" I said. "Who's dreaming now?"

"Not me, Mas'r Harry. I was never so wide awake in my life. I tell you, sir, I've seen you poking and stirring up amongst the sticks and stones in all sorts of places, just as if you was looking for some old woman's buried crock of crooked sixpences; and as soon as you've been gone these Indian chaps have come and looked, and stroked all the leaves and moss straight again. You're after something, Mas'r Harry, and they're after something; but I can't quite see through any of you yet.

Wants a good, stout, double-wicked six held the other side, and then I could read you both like a book."