第47章 THE HIDDEN CITY(3)

"I found it and handled it.Enough, could we have brought it off, to freight a dozen ships.Likewise jewels beyond the imagining of kings."Raleigh had raised himself on his elbow, his face sharp and eager.

I cannot doubt you, for you could not lie were it to win salvation.But, heavens! man, what a tale! Why did I not know of this before I broke my fortune on Tom Keymis' mine?""I alone know of it, the others being dead.""Who first told you of it?"

"Captain Bovill had the rumour from a dying Frenchman who was landed in his last hours at Falmouth.The man mentioned no names, but the tale set the captain inquiring and he picked up the clue in Bristol.But 'twas in north Ireland that he had the whole truth and a chart of the road.""These charts!" sighed Raleigh."I think the fairies have the making of them, for they bewitch sober men.A scrap of discoloured paper and a rag of canvas; some quaint lines drawn often in a man's blood, and a cross in a corner marking 'much gold.' We mortals are eternally babes, and our heads are turned by toys.""This chart was no toy, and he who owned it bought it with his life.Nay, Sir Walter, I am of your mind.Most charts are playthings from the devil.

But this was in manner of speaking sent from God.Only we did not read it right.We were blind men that thought only of treasure.""It is the common story," said Raleigh."Go on, Jasper.""We landed in the Gulf, at the point marked.It was at the mouth of a wide river so split up by sand bars that no ship could enter.But by portage and hard rowing we got our boats beyond the shoals and found deep water.We had learned beforehand that there were no Spanish posts within fifty miles, for the land was barren and empty even of Indians.So for ten days we rowed and poled through a flat plain, sweating mightily, till we came in sight of mountains.At that we looked for more comfort, for the road on our chart now led away from the river up a side valley.There we hoped for fruits, since it was their season, and for deer; and 'twas time, for our blood was thick with rotten victuals."The man shivered, as if the recollection had still terrors for him.

"If ever the Almighty permitted hell on earth 'twas that valley.There was no stream in it and no verdure.Oathsome fleshy shrubs, the colour of mouldy copper, dotted the slopes, and a wilderness of rocks through which we could scarce find a road.There was no living thing in it but carrion birds.And serpents.They dwelt in every cranny of stone, and the noise of them was like bees humming.We lost two stout fellows from their poison.

The sky was brass above us and our tongues were dry sticks, and by the foul vapours of the place our scanty food was corrupted.Never have men been nearer death.I think we would have retreated but for our captain; who had a honest heart.He would point out to us the track in the chart running through that accursed valley, and at the end the place lettered 'Mountain of God.' I mind how his hand shook as he pointed, for he was as sick as any.He was very gentle too, though for usual a choleric man.""Choleric, verily," said Raleigh."It must have been no common sufferings that tamed Robert Bovill.How long were you in the valley?"The better part of three days.'Twas like sword-cut in a great mountain plain, and on the third day we came to a wall of rock which was the head of it.This we scaled, how I do not know, by cracks and fissures, the stronger dragging up the weaker by means of the tow-rope which by the mercy of God we carried with us.There we lost Francis Derrick, who fell a great way and crushed his skull on a boulder.You knew the man?""He sailed with me in '95.So that was the end of Francis?""We were now eleven, and two of them dying.Above the rocks on the plain we looked for ease, but found none.'Twas like the bottom of a dry sea, all sand and great clefts, and in every hollow monstrous crabs that scattered the sand like spindrift as they fled from us.Some of the beasts we slew, and the blood of them was green as ooze, and their stench like a charnel house.Likewise there were everywhere fat vultures that dropped so close they fanned us with their wings.And in some parts there were cracks in the ground through which rose the fumes of sulphur that set a man's head reeling."Raleigh shivered."Madre de Dios, you portray the very floor of hell.""Beyond doubt the floor of hell.There was but one thing that could get us across that devil's land, for our bones were molten with fear.At the end rose further hills, and we could see with our eyes they were green....

Captain Bovill was like one transfigured.'See,' he cried, 'the Mountain of God!

Paradise is before you, and the way to Paradise, as is well known, lies through the devil's country.A little longer, brave hearts, and we shall be in port.' And so fierce was the spirit of that man that it lifted our weary shanks and fevered bodies through another two days of torment.I have no clear memory of those hours.Assuredly we were all mad and spoke with strange voices.My eyes were so gummed together that I had often to tear the lids apart to see.But hourly that green hill came nearer, and towards dusk of the second day it hung above us.Also we found sweet water, and a multitude of creeping vines bearing a wholesome berry.Then as we lay down to sleep, the priest came to us."Raleigh exclaimed."What did a priest in those outlands? A Spaniard?""Ay.But not such as you and I have ever known elsewhere.Papegot or no, he was a priest of the Most High.He was white and dry as a bone, and his eyes burned glassily.Captain Bovill, who liked not the dark brothers, would have made him prisoner, for he thought him a forerunner of a Spanish force, but he held up a ghostly hand and all of us were struck with a palsy of silence.For the man was on the very edge of death.