Chapter Fifteen.
Collecting the Gold.
“Ever see ’em ketch eels at home, Master Cyril?” said John Manning one morning.
“We used to set night lines in the lake at school,” said Cyril. “We threw the bait out ever so far, and tied the other end to a brick sunk in the water.”
“Oh yes: but I don’t mean that way, where every twopenny eel spoils four pen’orth o’ good line and hooks. I mean with an eel-trap, one of those made of osiers, so that it’s very easy to get in, but very hard to get out.”
“Yes; I saw some of those once,” cried Perry, “up by a weir. But why? There are no eels here.”
John Manning chuckled, and shook all over, as if he enjoyed what he was saying.
“Not many, sir, but quite enough. We’re the eels, and we’ve wriggled ourselves right into a trap, and there’s no getting out again.”
“It doesn’t seem as if there were,” said Cyril thoughtfully; “but we’re getting what the colonel wanted, and I don’t think the Indians have noticed it yet.”
“’Tain’t for want of looking, sir,” said the old soldier. “I go for a bit of a walk in one direction, and begin picking something, and feel a tickling about the back. ‘Some one’s eyes on me,’ I says to myself, and I go a bit farther, and feel the same tickling in front. Then one side, then t’other, and it’s always eyes watching.”
“Yes,” said Perry. “We’ve been a week here, and I get so sick of it: I never move without there being some one after me; and the worst of it is, you don’t see him coming, but find him watching you from behind a rock, or out of a bush.”
“Yes,” said Cyril, “it isn’t nice. They crawl about like snakes, and almost as quietly.”
“Don’t matter,” said John Manning, with another chuckle. “We can be as cunning as they. How have you young gents got on since the colonel give his orders?”
“Pretty well,” said Cyril. “Of course it’s of no use to try and get roots or cuttings, they look too sharp after us; but I’ve found some seed, and he has got more than I have.”
“How much have you got, both of you together?” asked the old soldier, with his eyes twinkling.
“Nearly a handful, I should say,” replied Cyril.
“A handful, sir! Why, what’s that? I’ve got quite half a gallon.”
“You have?” cried Perry. “Father will be so pleased.”
“Course he will, sir,” said John Manning, with a self-satisfied smile. “‘Get every seed you can,’ he says, ‘and they’ll hardly notice you.’
“‘Right, sir,’ I says, and I set to work quietly, going a bit here, and a bit there, in among the trees, making believe I was making for them cocoa-nut leaves as the Indians chew; and whenever I caught one of the Injuns watching me, I picked a leaf, and began to chew it, and nodded at him, and said bono, bono. You should have seen how he grinned and showed his teeth at me, Master Cyril, and I could see he was thinking what a fool this Englishman was. But I wasn’t quite so stupid as he thought, eh?”
“But that’s not cocoa-nut leaf,” said Cyril, “but the leaf of the coca.”
“Well, sir, that’s what I say. I know it isn’t the nuts but the leaves they chew.”
“But the coca leaf’s a different thing.”
“Course it is, sir; one’s a leaf and t’other’s a nut.”
“But, don’t you see, cocoa-nut leaf and coca leaf are different things?”
“No, sir; but it don’t matter. They think I’m hunting for them leaves to chew, and they laugh at me, and all the time I’m getting a good heap of the seeds the colonel wants. ’Tain’t the first time he’s sent me to forage.”
“But where are the seeds?” said Cyril.
“All right, sir,” said John Manning, with a look full of cunning. “Never you put all your eggs in one basket, sir.”
“Of course not; but I hope you’ve put them in a dry place. Seeds are no use if they’re not kept dry.”
“They’re all right, sir. I’ve got some in each of my pockets, and some along with my cartridges in my satchel, and some inside the lining of my coat, and a lot more round my waist.”
“Round your waist?” cried Cyril. “You can’t wear seeds round your waist.”
John Manning chuckled once more.
“Can, if you put ’em in an old stocking first, sir,” he said. “But look here, young gents, as I’m so much more lucky than you are, and know better where to go for ’em, you’d better take part o’ mine, and leave me free to fill up again.”
“Yes, that will be best,” assented Perry. “I can take a lot in my pockets.”
“Any one looking, sir?”
“Very likely; but I shall take no notice. They won’t know what we’re changing from one pocket to the other, so let them watch.”
“All right, sir; then here goes,” said the old soldier, thrusting a hand deep down into his trousers pocket, and drawing out a quantity of seed. “Here you are, sir; and I’d make believe to eat a bit in case any one is watching.”
But as they were seated out of the sun, in the shade of the rough hut that had originally been put up for drying the kina bark, they were pretty well hidden from watchers, and able to carry on the transfer in comparative secrecy.
“But this isn’t seed of the cinchona tree,” cried Cyril excitedly.
“What!” said the old soldier sharply, and as if startled. Then altering his tone to one of easy confidence, with a dash of the supercilious. “Don’t you talk about what you can’t understand, sir. These here are what the colonel showed me, and told me to pick for him.”
“They’re not the same as my father told me to pick,” cried Perry.
“Well, seeing as you’re young gents, and I’m only a sarvant,” grumbled the man, “it ain’t for me to contradict, and I won’t; but I will say them’s the seeds the colonel told me to pick, and there they are, and you’d better put ’em away.”
“I’m not going to put these in my pocket,” said Cyril, “for I know they’re wrong.”
“And I certainly shan’t put them in mine,” said Perry.
“Look here, young gents, ain’t this a bit mutinous?” said John Manning. “Colonel’s orders were that we should collect them seeds, and if you’d got the best lot, I should have helped you; but as you haven’t got the best lot, and I have, ain’t it your duty to help me?”
“Yes; and so we should, if you hadn’t made a blunder.”
“But I ain’t, young gents; these here are right.”
“No,” said Perry. “These are right,” and he took a few seeds from his pocket.
“And these,” said Cyril, following his companion’s example.
“Not they,” cried John Manning warmly. “They ain’t a bit like mine.”
“No, not a bit,” said Cyril triumphantly.
“No, nor his ain’t like yours, Master Perry.”
The boys stared, for this was a new phase of the question, and they eagerly inspected the treasures.
“I’m sure I’m right,” said Perry confidently.
“And I’m sure I’m right,” cried Cyril.
John Manning put his arms round his knees, as he sat on the ground, and rocked himself to and fro, chuckling softly.
At that point the colonel came up, and looked round wonderingly.
“You’re just in time, father,” cried Perry. “Look at this seed John Manning has collected.—Show him, John.”
The old soldier triumphantly pulled out a handful, and held it under the colonel’s nose.
“What’s that?” said his master.
“The seed you told me to forage for, sir.”
“Absurd! There: throw it away.”
“Throw it away, sir?”
“Of course. It is not what I told you. There, take and throw it away, where the Indians see you do it, and they will pay less attention next time they see you collecting.”
John Manning said nothing then, but went out of the slight hut frowning, came back, and the colonel turned to the boys.
“Well,” he said, “what have you got?”
They both eagerly showed a little of the seed, and the colonel uttered an ejaculation full of impatience.
“No, no,” he said; “pray be careful. That is not the same as you got for me the day before yesterday.”
“Not mine?” cried Perry.
“No, sir; nor yours either, Cyril. They are both cinchona, but of the inferior, comparatively useless kinds.”
John Manning chuckled.
“But the seeds are so much alike, sir,” said Cyril.
“Yes, but the broken capsules with them are not, boy. The good splits down one way, the inferior the other. There, I suppose I must give you all another lesson. Come and have a walk at once.”
He led the way out, all taking their guns, in the hope of getting a little fresh provision, as well as to throw off the attention of the Indians, who smiled at them pleasantly enough, as they looked up from their tasks of cutting and peeling the bark from the trunks and branches, most of the men with their jaws working, as they chewed away at the coca leaf, which every one seemed to carry in a little pouch attached to the waist.
No one seemed to pay further heed to them, but they were soon conscious that they were being watched, for an Indian was visible, when they went past the spot where their two guides were watching the browsing mules; and then, as they plunged into the forest, from time to time there was an indication that they were being well guarded, and that any attempt at evasion would result in an alarm being spread at once.
Once well out among the trees, the colonel began picking leaf and flower indiscriminately, to take off the watcher’s attention; but he contrived, at the same time, to rivet the boys’ attention upon the flower and seed of the most valuable of the cinchona trees, indicating the colour of the blossom, and the peculiarities of the seed-vessels, till even John Manning declared himself perfect.
“Seeds only,” said the colonel. “I give up all thought of trying to take plants. We must depend upon the seeds alone, and we ought to get a good collection before we have done.”
“And then, father?” asked Perry.
“Then we go back as fast as we can, if—”
“If what?” asked Perry.
“The Indians will let us depart.”
“That’s it, sir,” put in John Manning. “What I was saying to the young gentleman this morning. They don’t mean to let us go. We’ve regularly walked into a trap.”
There was silence for a few moments, the colonel frowning, as if resenting the interference of his servant, but directly after he said quietly:
“I’m afraid you are right, John Manning, but we must set our wits against theirs. In another week we shall have quite sufficient of the treasured seed to satisfy me—that is, if you three are more careful—then we must start back, before our stores begin to fail.”
“What about the guides, sir?” said Cyril. “They will not help us.”
“No,” said the colonel. “Not the Indian guides, but I have a little English guide here, upon which we shall have to depend. There must be other passes through the mountains, and we know that our course is due west. We shall have to trust to this.”
He held out a little pocket-compass as he spoke, and then, after they had added somewhat to the store of seed already collected, both boys this time making the proper selection of tree from which to gather the reproductive seeds, they walked slowly back toward the camp.
But not alone: the Indians who had followed them outward, returning slowly behind them, carefully keeping far in the background, and trying to conceal the fact that they were on the watch; but it was only too plain to all that it would require a great deal of ingenuity to escape notice and get a fair start when the time came for making their escape.