The Golden Magnet Part 46

Then my thoughts reverted to home and those I had to meet there, with our accounts of how it was that poor Tom had met his death.

"All due to my miserable ambition," I said to myself; "all owing to my wretched thirst for gold. And what has it all come to?" I said bitterly. "I had far better have settled down to honest, straightforward labour. I should have been better off."

I gave the paddle a few dips here, and noted that the water was much purer and clearer than it had seemed yet. We were very close in to the sh.o.r.e, but we had floated down so far that we had ceased to fear the Indians, believing as we did that they were now far behind.

Then I began to think once more of how much better off I should have been if I had settled down to work on my uncle's plantation.

Not much, I was obliged to own, for my settling down would not have saved me from quarrelling with Garcia, neither would it have cleared my uncle from the inc.u.mbrance upon his home.

"Perhaps things are best as they are," I said; and then I looked back to where Lilla was thoughtfully gazing down into the river from where she reclined upon the raft, and letting one of her hands hang down in the water, which she played with and splashed from time to time.

I was just going to warn her not to do so, for I remembered having read or heard tell that alligators would sometimes make a snap at a hand dragging in the water like that, when she uttered a sharp cry, s.n.a.t.c.hing her hand away; and as she did so I saw a little flash, as if a tiny, silvery fish, dropped back into the water.

"What is it?" I said.

"Something bit me--a little fish," she said. "It has nipped a morsel out of my finger."

She held up her hand as she spoke before wrapping a sc.r.a.p of linen round it, and I could see that it was bleeding freely.

"Surely it could not have been that tiny fish," I said, thrusting one hand into the water and s.n.a.t.c.hing it back again, for as it pa.s.sed beneath the surface it was as if it had been pinched in half a dozen places at once; and when I thrust it in again I could see that the water was alive with little fish apparently about a couple of inches long, and instantaneously they made a rush at my hand, fastening upon it everywhere, so that it needed a sharp shake to throw them off; and when I drew it out, hardened and tough as it was with my late rough work, it was bleeding in a dozen places.

"Why, the little wretches!" I exclaimed; and by way of experiment I held a piece of leather over the side, to find that it was attacked furiously; while even later on, when I had been fishing and had caught a small kind of mud-carp, I hauled it behind the canoe, in a few minutes there was nothing left but the head--the little ravenous creatures having literally devoured it all but the stronger bones.

I remember thinking how unpleasant it would be to bathe there, and often and often afterwards we found that it would be absolutely impossible to dip our hands beneath the water unless we wished to withdraw them smarting and covered with blood.

What more these little creatures could effect we had yet to learn, but we owned that they were as powerful in the water as the fiercer kind of ants on land, where they were virulent enough in places to master even the larger kinds of snakes if they could find them in a semi-torpid state after a meal--biting with such virulence and in such myriads that the most powerful creatures at last succ.u.mbed.

At last, as the days glided on, we became more and more silent. Very little was said, and only once did my uncle talk to me quietly about our future, saying that we must get to one of the settlements on the Orinoco, low down near its mouth, and then see what could be done.

A deep, settled melancholy seemed to have affected us all; but the sight, after many days, of a small trading-boat seemed to inspire us with hopefulness; and having, in exchange for a gun, obtained a fair quant.i.ty of provisions, we continued our journey with lightened spirits.

In spite, though, of seeing now and then a trading-boat, we got at last into a very dull and dreamy state; while, as is usually the case, the weakest, and the one from whom you might expect the least, proved to have the stoutest heart. I allude, of course, to Lilla, who always tried to cheer us on.

But there was a change coming--one which we little expected--just as, after what seemed to be an endless journey, we came in sight of a town which afterwards proved to be Angostura.

CHAPTER FORTY NINE.

HOW TOM SAVED THE TREASURE.

It was the afternoon of a glorious day, and we were floating along in the broiling heat, now and then giving a dip with the paddles, so as to direct the canoe more towards the bank, where we could see houses.

There was a boat here and a boat there, moored in the current; and now and then we pa.s.sed a canoe, while others seemed to be going in the same direction as ourselves.

"Harry, look there!" cried my uncle.

I looked in the direction pointed-out ahead, shading my eyes with my hand, when I dropped my paddle, as I rose up, trembling, in the boat; for just at that moment, from a canoe being paddled towards us, there came a faint but unmistakable English cheer--one to which I could not respond for the choking feelings in my throat.

I rubbed my eyes, fancying that I must have been deceived, as the canoe came nearer and nearer, but still slowly, till it grated against ours, and my hands were held fast by those of honest old Tom, who was laughing, crying, and talking all in a breath.

"And I've been thinking I was left behind, Mas'r Harry, and working away to catch you; while all the time I've been paddling away."

"Tom!--Tom!" I cried huskily, "we thought you dead!"

"But I ain't--not a bit of it, Mas'r Harry. I'm as live as ever. But ain't you going to ask arter anything else?"

"Tom, you're alive," I said, in the thankfulness of my heart, "and that is enough."

"No, 'tain't, Mas'r Harry," he whispered rather faintly; for now I saw that he looked pale and exhausted. "No, 'tain't enough; for I've got all the stuff in the bottom here, just as we packed it in. Ain't you going to say 'hooray!' for that, Mas'r Harry?" he cried, in rather disappointed tones.

"Tom," I said, "life's worth a deal more than gold." And then I turned from him, for I could say no more.

We pushed in now to the landing-place, with a feeling of awakened confidence, given--though I did not think of it then--by the knowledge of our wealth; and leaving Tom in charge of the canoes, we sought the first shelter we could obtain, and leaving there my uncle to watch over the safety of the women, I set about making inquiries, and was exceedingly fortunate in obtaining possession of a house that was falling to ruin, having been lying deserted since quitted by an English merchant a couple of years before. A few inquiries, too, led us to the discovery that there was an English vice-consul resident, to whom I told so much of our story as was safe, mentioning the attack upon my uncle, and speaking of myself as having merely been upon an exploring visit.

The result was a number of pleasant little attentions, the consul sending up his servants to a.s.sist in making the house habitable, and sending to buy for us such articles of furniture as would be necessary for our immediate wants.

I took the first opportunity of impressing upon all present secrecy respecting the treasure, for I could not tell in what light our possession of it might be looked upon; and then I hurried down to the canoes to Tom with refreshments, of which he eagerly partook, as he said at intervals:

"I believe I should have been starved out, Mas'r Harry, if there hadn't been some of the eatables stuffed in my canoe by mistake; for I'd got nothing much to swop with the Indians when I did happen to see any ash.o.r.e."

It was then arranged that he should still stay with the boats till I could return and tell him that I had a safe place, while as Tom lazily stretched himself over the packages in the canoe, sheltering his head with a few great leaves, his appearance excited no attention, and I left him without much anxiety, to return to my uncle.

The discovery that Tom existed had robbed our perils of three parts of their suffering; and now, with feelings of real anxiety respecting the treasure springing up, I hurried back again to the landing-place, to find all well, for the place was too Spanish and lazy for our coming to create much excitement.

"Say, Mas'r Harry," cried Tom, grinning hugely, in spite of his pale face and exhaustion, "I've got you now. I said you was to let me have a pound a week; I must go in for thirty bob after this. Come, now, no shirking. Say yes, or I'm hanged if I don't scuttle the canoe."

It was evident, though, that Tom had undergone a great deal, and was far from able to bear much more; for that evening, after telling the Indian porters that I was a sort of curiosity and stone collector, and getting the treasure carried up safely to the house which I had taken, he suddenly gave a lurch, and would have fallen had I not caught his arm.

"Why, Tom!" I cried anxiously.

"I think, Mas'r Harry," he said softly, "it might be as well if you was to let a doctor look at me--it would be just as well. I've a bullet in me somewhere, and that knife--"

"Bullet--knife, Tom?"

"Yes, Mas'r Harry, that Garcia--but I'll tell you all about it after."

The doctor I hastily summoned looked serious as he examined Tom's hurts; and though, with insular pride, I rather looked down upon Spanish doctors, this gentleman soon proved himself of no mean skill in surgery, and under his care Tom rapidly approached convalescence.

"You see, Mas'r Harry, it was after this fashion," said Tom one evening as I sat by his bedside indulging in a cup of coffee, just when one of the afternoon rains had cooled the earth, and the air that was wafted through the open window was delicious. "You see it was after this fashion--"

"But are you strong enough to talk about it, Tom?" I said anxiously.

"Strong, Mas'r Harry! I could get a toller cask down out of a van.

Well, it was like this: I was, as you know, in the gold canoe; and being on my knees, I was leaning over the side expecting you to swim off to me, and at last, as I thought, there you was, when I held out my hands and got hold of one of yours and the barrel of a gun with the other, when a thought struck me--

"'Why, surely Mas'r Harry hadn't his gun with him?'

"But it was no time, I thought, for bothering about trifles, with the night black as ink, and the Indians collected together upon the bank; so I did the best I could to help you, and the next minute there you was in the gold canoe, and not without nearly oversetting it, heavy-laden as she was--when I whispers, 'You'd best take a paddle here, Mas'r Harry,'