BRITISH MYSTERIES - Fergus Hume Collection: 21 Thriller Novels in One Volume. Fergus Hume
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them in their sore distress, completely worn out, body and soul and garments. Still they felt a certain amount of comfort in three consolations: First, they had escaped from Totatzine with their lives. Secondly, the wallet was not yet exhausted of meat and drink, so that they were in no danger of starvation. Thirdly, Cocom, always supposing he would hoodwink the priests as to his share in their escape, would arrive within twelve hours or thereabouts. Thus fortified with food and hope, they stayed thankfully in the cave and waited the arrival of the old Indian.
As to the journey from platform to cave, that had been a horrible dream, a nightmare of hardship, of weariness, of many pangs. Starting from the terrace shortly after midnight, they had traversed the avenue in three hours. It was five miles in length, and proceeding at the rate of two miles every sixty minutes, it can be easily seen that they could gain the shelter of the forest long before dawn. The great road ended abruptly amid a confused heap of ruins, forest trees, tangled undergrowth. Doubtless, in the old time it had continued even to the coast, but time and the Indians had obliterated all traces of its magnificence five miles down. The former did this because it is his invariable custom to so treat all human works, which set themselves up as enduring for ever; the latter played havoc with the relics of their ancestors’ magnificence, so as to hide the city of Totatzine from the eyes of the white destroyers, who had trodden out of existence those same ancestors. Nature had also done her share in the work of destruction, and sent a wave of green trees across the straight line of cause-way. Therefore, the road which began so proudly at the foot of the great staircase ended suddenly, after five miles, in the tangled wilderness.
The journey from Totatzine to this point had been long and arduous. The moon had set behind the hills so that it was now dark, and to explore an unknown forest in such gloom would have been foolish, therefore Jack insisted that they should take some rest. In the midst of an old palace he constructed a bed for Dolores with the aid of his and her own cloak, and after seeing her safely bestowed therein, lay down at the entrance so as to act as a sleeping sentinel if such a thing be possible. Nothing particular occurred, however, and when they awoke the sun was already high in the heavens. Then they made a frugal breakfast and resumed their journey.
The way being no longer clearly defined, their progress was necessarily slow from this point. To the right, on the trunk of a tree, appeared the sign of a scarlet opal as before pictured on the rocks, so to the right they went, and at once, even at these few steps from the causeway, found themselves in the heart of a wild, tropical forest. There was something terrible to these two civilised beings about the primeval savagery of this vegetation and exuberant foliage. Dense, tangled, almost impenetrable, it reminded Jack of the wood grown by fairy power round the palace of the sleeping beauty. That forest, however was to keep lovers out; this, alas! served to keep these lovers in. It lay between them and the coast, quite thirty-five miles of wild growth, and at times Dolores almost despaired of breaking through the barrier. Not so Jack, he was hopeful of ultimate success being strengthened in his faith by the constant appearance of the opal sign.
On every side of them rose giant trees of hoary age, their trunks seemingly supporting the verdant roof above-head. At times, so dense were the leaves that sky and sun and kindly light were shut out entirely, and they moved through a translucent twilight of tremulous green. From trunks and boughs depended lianas like ropes binding the forest giants together, or, dropping to the ground, formed a ladder up which climbed the most exquisite flowers. Splendid tree-ferns drooped their gigantic fronds on high, springing thickly from tall pillars, rough, brown, and hairy. Below, the ground was thick with brilliant blossoms, which seized every chance offered by rock, liana, and trunk to climb upward to that light excluded by the sea of foliage overhead.
At every step the forest changed its appearance, as though it were an enchanted wood. Here, all was savagery and gloom; step forward, and lo! a wide and sunny glade. One moment, and they were surrounded by moss-covered rocks; the next, and a noble avenue of palms opened a vista before them. Pools of water sparkled here and there; babbling brooks winding capriciously in and out in wayward circles; at times, the sudden gleam of a waterfall, threading downwards in white streaks from a giant rock; and again, the miasma of a swamp, black and evil-looking, in whose waters rolled the trunks of fallen trees. Everywhere flowers bursting into bloom; everywhere new leaves swelling into being; everywhere the exuberant life of a tropic climate. The atmosphere was warm and damp, a clammy air permeated the woods, and the whole place was one vast hothouse, where fecundation went on unceasingly. Throughout, a rich perfume pervaded the air, heavy, sickly, and languorous.
Fortunately, Jack’s sight had been rendered keen by his profession, else it would have been difficult to have discerned the sign, on trunk of tree, or mossy rock. Scarlet is a noticeable colour, and had the opal sign been the only red hue in the forest, there would have been no difficulty in the matter. But everywhere scarlet flowers made fire of the intense emerald of foliage and grass. Dazzling masses of crimson verbena glared fiercely in the dim gloom, vermilion blossoms burned like lamps in the dense brushwood, wreaths of ruddy leaves made streaks like veins overhead, and the ground blazed with the pinks and carmines and purples of an infinite variety of blossoms. It was difficult to pick out the red-opal sign amid this constant repetition of the same tints; but Jack, by careful observation, managed to do so, being guided at times by a well-defined path. Indeed, often he was tempted to ignore the sign, and go only by the path; but, as numerous branches led off from the omphalos of the great road, he was afraid of going astray, so kept his reckoning by the opal alone.
For two days they travelled through this zone of verdure, and at length, by the salt smell in the air, became aware that they were nearing the ocean. At times they met Indians, gaudily dressed, with painted faces, and deadly looking weapons; but these, on observing the scarlet mantles of the pair, and receiving the sign on lips and forehead, stepped aside to let them pass. They recognised that these travellers were proceeding eastward by the will of the god, under the vow of silence. Superstition, stronger than greed or cruelty, protected them from the savages of the wilderness.
The journey was not dull, in spite of their anxiety and dread of being followed. On every side the forest was full of life, and Dolores was delighted to see the constant flashing of humming-birds, green, red and yellow glories, which darted through the still air like flying gems. Once they saw the yellow hide of a jaguar, black spotted, sleek, and terrible. Jack had nothing but a knife, given to him by Cocom, and regretted that he had not his revolver with him. A knife was but a poor weapon to do battle with such a terrible foe. To their relief, however, the animal only eyed them for a few minutes in startled surprise, and then slunk away among the undergrowth. Other perils from wild animals they had none.
Sometimes the whole air would be alive with butterflies. Purple, yellow spotted, azure striped, they fluttered everywhere. One would have thought the flowers were alive, and flew from stem to stem. Peter, as Jack thought, would have been in his element. This forest was the true paradise of butterflies. But they had no time to admire all this skill and fecundity of Nature. Resolutely following the opal sign, they pushed onward through the forest. They saw on all sides the puzzle monkey trees, with their sharp spikes; ombù trees, whose shade is so dense; aloes, whose branches spread outward like the seven-stemmed candlestick of the Revelation; palms, mangoes, wild fig trees; cactus, burning with fleshy scarlet blossoms, and shallow lagunas, swampy pools of water, filled with sedges and rushes and slimy weeds.
The din was constant. Monkeys swung themselves from bough to bough overhead, chattered without ceasing; parrots, gay plumaged, harsh voiced, shrieked discordantly in their ears; the roaring of jaguars and pumas sounded faint in the distance, like muffled thunder; and ever rasped the stridulation of restless grasshoppers, unseen but noisy.
Such a wealth of invention, such overpowering luxuriance, wore out the senses, wearied the soul. Both Jack and Dolores were glad when the sharp, salt smell of the sea struck knife-like through the enervating atmosphere. They had been travelling since dawn, and now, at noon, on the third day of their departure from Totatzine, they beheld the great waste of waters, flashing like a mirror in the sun. Jack should have greeted it as did the Hellens of Epaminondas, with a joyful cry of “Thalatta! Thalatta!” but he had forgotten his Greek, and was too weary to feel poetic.
At this stage of their journey, they met with many Indians, who here landed in order to proceed to the shrine of the