Chapter Five.
What has become of Butler?
On the second day after the dispatch of Yupanqui to the surveyors’ camp, he had duly returned with a curt officially worded note from Butler acknowledging the receipt of Escombe’s “report” of his accident and its result, and requesting the latter to rejoin the survey party with the least possible delay, “as his absence was the cause of much inconvenience and delay in the progress of the survey”. Not a word of regret at the occurrence of the accident, much less anything that could be construed into an admission that the writer’s own unreasonable demands and orders were the cause of the mishap; and not even a word of congratulation at Escombe’s narrow escape from a terrible death; simply a formal request that he would rejoin, “with the least possible delay”, for a certain good and sufficient reason. Poor Harry shrugged his shoulders with something very like contempt for the hidebound creature who was, to a great extent, the master of his fate, and who seemed to be absolutely destitute of the very smallest shred of good feeling. He felt that it would be quite hopeless to look for any praise or appreciation from such a man; he foresaw that the fellow would appropriate to himself whatever credit might result from the expedition, and lay upon his (Harry’s) shoulders the onus of any shortcomings of complete success. And he came to the conclusion that since such a chief was not worth putting oneself out for, he would remain where he was until it was quite certain that he could travel with perfect safety, and resume duty immediately upon his return to camp. But he was young, and possessed a thoroughly sound constitution; moreover, he had miraculously escaped with unbroken bones, his recovery therefore was rapid, and on the nineteenth day after the accident he rejoined the camp and formally reported himself as prepared to resume duty.
It had been Butler’s custom, from the commencement of the survey, to flag out a certain length of route daily, and to insist—without very much regard to the difficulties of the task—that that amount of work should be done by nightfall. This length of route usually amounted to from two to three miles, and Escombe had once or twice protested—when the natural difficulties of the work were excessive—that he could not undertake to guarantee the accuracy of his work if so much were demanded of him; to which Butler had retorted that, in his opinion, the amount of work demanded was exceedingly moderate, that he should expect it to be done, and that he should hold Escombe responsible for all inaccuracies. Yet, upon Escombe’s return to camp he found that, during the nineteen days of his absence, Butler had advanced the survey by a distance of less than four miles! the explanation which the elder man condescended to make being that, during the four days immediately following the accident, no survey work at all had been done, the whole body of peons having been scattered in various directions, seeking some clue to Harry’s fate.
For a week or two after Escombe’s return to camp matters went very much more smoothly. Whether it was that Harry’s accident had given Butler a wholesome fright, or that the conviction had been forced upon the latter that he had been outrageously exacting, there was nothing to show, but certain it was that, for a while, Escombe was allowed to take his own time over his work and do it his own way, with the result that while this state of affairs lasted the lad actually took pleasure in, nay, thoroughly enjoyed, his work. But on the third week after his return Harry began to detect signs that these agreeable conditions were drawing to an end. Thenceforth Butler allowed himself to gradually drift back into his former exacting and autocratic ways, until at length life in the camp again became a veritable purgatory for everybody concerned, Butler himself included, the natural result of his tyrannical conduct being that everybody—Harry excepted—did everything in his power to thwart him, while even the lad himself ceased to attempt the apparently impossible task of pleasing his chief.
In this unpleasant and unsatisfactory manner the railway survey proceeded for the two months following Escombe’s return to duty; by which time Butler’s behaviour had become so unendurable that nearly three-fourths of the peons originally engaged had deserted, notwithstanding the fact that their desertion involved them in the loss of a sum in wages that, to these humble toilers, represented quite a little fortune, and their places had been filled by others of a much less desirable type in every way. And this was all the more to be regretted since the surveyors were now in the very heart of the mountains, where the natural difficulties to be contended with were at their worst, while the newcomers, being of course utterly strange to such work, had to be taught their duties, down to the simplest detail, under the most adverse conditions possible. It can be readily understood that the attempt to instruct a set of ignorant, stupid, sullen, and lawless half-castes under such conditions was a task of surpassing difficulty, resulting in constant acute friction, and demanding the nicest judgment and the utmost diplomacy upon the part of the teachers. Harry met this difficulty by bringing to his assistance an almost sublime patience, that in the course of time—and not a very long time either—completely wore down the opposition of his unwilling pupils and brought a change in their mental attitude which was as surprising as it was satisfactory. Butler, however, knew not the meaning of the word “patience”, nor did his character contain the smallest particle of that valuable quality; his method was what he termed “the rough-and-ready”, and consisted in emphasising every order, and item of construction, with a kick! It was not surprising, therefore, that the relations between him and the peons daily grew more strained.
It was when the tension between Butler on the one hand and the peons on the other had developed to such an extent that the labourers had been goaded into a state of almost open mutiny, that the former set out as usual, on horseback, one morning, accompanied by a half-dozen of the new hands, to seek for and stake out a few miles farther of practicable route. Such a duty as this he usually contrived to complete in time to return to the camp for lunch, after which he was wont to saunter out along the line until he encountered Harry, when he would spend the remainder of the day in making the poor lad’s life a burden to him by finding fault with everything he did, frequently insisting upon having some particularly awkward and difficult piece of work done over again. Consequently the progress of the survey was abnormally and exasperatingly slow; and when, upon the day in question, Butler failed to put in an appearance on the scene of operations, young Escombe’s first feeling was one of gratification, for he was just then engaged upon an exceptionally difficult task which he was most anxious to complete without being interfered with. So absorbed was the lad in his work that he had not much thought to spare for speculation as to the reason for so unusual a piece of good luck, although it is true that, as the afternoon wore on, he did once or twice permit himself to wonder whether “perchance” he had to thank a slight touch of indisposition, or possibly a sprained ankle, for this unexpected and most welcome freedom from interruption. But when at length, upon his arrival in camp at the conclusion of his day’s survey work, he learned, to his astonishment, that neither Butler nor his party of peons had returned, the impression forced itself upon him that something serious had happened, and mustering afresh his own gang of tired and hungry assistants, and providing them with lanterns, ropes, and other aids to a search, he led them forth along the survey line in quest of the absent ones.
For a distance of nearly two miles from the camp the route of the missing party was easily followed, being marked by stakes at frequent intervals, indicating the line chosen by Butler as that to be surveyed by Escombe. It ended at the foot of a precipitous slope of bare rock towering aloft some seven or eight hundred feet, with further heights beyond it. Here the searchers were brought to an abrupt halt, for Harry was fully aware that no sane engineer would for a single moment dream of carrying an ordinary railway up that rocky acclivity, while it was well understood that the rack system of construction was to be avoided, if possible, upon the score of expense. The probability was that Butler, upon reaching this point, and finding himself confronted by the necessity to make a wide détour, or, alternatively, to consider the question of a tunnel, had struck off, either to the right or to the left, on a tour of investigation; and there was the chance that, becoming involved in the maze-like intricacies of his surroundings, he had decided to camp out for the night rather than risk an accident by attempting to return in darkness over difficult ground. But this was a question which Harry felt ought to be settled forthwith, and he accordingly issued instructions to his peons to search for the spoor of the party and follow it up. To find the spoor was a very easy matter, for the last stake had been driven in comparatively soft ground, and despite the fact that it was by this time almost pitch dark, a short search, aided by the light of the lanterns, disclosed the hoof prints of Butlers horse, which led off to the left, and which were followed until the searchers found themselves on the borders of an extensive pine wood growing on hard, steeply rising ground over which it was impossible to trace further the trail in the darkness. This impossibility once realised, the search was abandoned for the night, and Harry very reluctantly gave the word for a return to camp, which was reached about nine o’clock.
At daybreak the next morning the camp was roused, breakfast prepared and eaten, and, taking with them rations to last until nightfall, the search party again set out upon their quest, making their way direct to the spot where the trail had been lost on the previous night, where it was again picked up without much trouble. It led in straight toward the heart of the wood, and was followed, with ever-increasing difficulty, for a distance of about three-quarters of a mile until it was lost on hard, shaley ground, nor were the utmost efforts of the party equal to finding it again. After carefully considering the situation, therefore, Escombe detailed one man, an Indian, to accompany him, and, placing the remainder of the peons in charge of a man whom he believed he could trust, with instructions to search the wood thoroughly, returned to the outskirts of the timber, and, beginning at the spot where the trail entered it, proceeded, with the assistance of the Indian, to encircle the wood, carefully examining every foot of the ground as they went, in the hope that, if Butler and his party had passed through the timber and emerged on its other side, the Indian would succeed in picking up the spoor. But the hope was vain, for the wood was completely encircled—the task occupying the entire day—without the discovery of the faintest trace or sign of the passage of the missing party, which was not at all surprising, for when the far side of the wood was reached the soil proved to be of so stony a character, thickly interspersed with great outcrops of rock, that even the most skilled and keen-eyed of trackers might have been excused for failing in the search for footprints on so unyielding a surface. It was a little puzzling to Harry that not even the horse had left any trace behind him; but this was accounted for when, upon rejoining the party who had been detailed to search the interior of the wood, it was discovered that the animal had been found by them, still saddled and bridled, wandering aimlessly about in search of such scanty herbage as the soil there afforded. Upon the horse being brought to him, the young Englishman—mindful of the scarcely concealed hatred which Butler had, almost wantonly, as it seemed, aroused in the breasts of the peons—immediately subjected the animal and his trappings to a most rigorous examination in search of any sign of possible violence, but nothing of the kind could be found, and the only result of the examination was the conclusion, to which everything pointed, that Butler had, for some reason, voluntarily dismounted and at least temporarily abandoned the animal.
Butler and his party had now been missing for full twenty-four hours, and Harry speedily arrived at two conclusions which inexorably led him to a third. The first conclusion at which he arrived was that the peons who had accompanied his chief, accustomed as they had been from their earliest childhood to make their way about the country, were so little likely to have lost their way that that theory might be unhesitatingly abandoned; the second was that Butler would certainly not have absented himself purposely from the camp for a whole night and a day, and that therefore—this was the third conclusion—something had gone very seriously wrong. The next problem that presented itself for solution was: What was it that had gone wrong? Had the entire party met with an accident? It was most unlikely. There were seven of them altogether, and in the event of an accident, surely at least one of the seven would have escaped and returned to the camp for help. Had they been seized and carried off by brigands? When Harry put this question to the peons who remained with him he was laughed at good-naturedly and assured that, in the first place, there were no brigands in Peru, so far as they were aware; and, in the second place, that if perchance there were they would probably not have contented themselves with simply carrying off seven men, six of whom would be only an encumbrance to them, but would almost certainly have attacked and sacked the camp some time during the hours of daylight, when it was left comparatively unprotected. There was but one other probable alternative of which Harry could think, and that was that Butler’s peons, exasperated at length beyond endurance by some fresh piece of petty tyranny on the white man’s part, had deserted, carrying off their employer with them, either with the purpose of being revenged upon him, or in the hope that by holding him as a hostage they might be able to secure payment of the amount of wages due to them. But when Escombe submitted this alternative to his peons for their consideration and opinion, they shook their heads and emphatically declared that they did not believe that any such thing had happened. And when further asked for their opinion as to what had happened, they simply answered that they did not know what to think. But to Harry it seemed that there was a certain lack of spontaneity in this reply, which caused him to doubt whether the speakers were quite sincere in so saying.
With a very heavy load of responsibility thus unexpectedly thrown upon his shoulders, the young Englishman spent several anxious hours in camp that night pondering upon what was the proper course for him now to pursue, and he finally came to the conclusion that, having ascertained beyond much possibility of doubt that his chief had been abducted, the next thing to be done was to discover whither and under what circumstances he had been carried off, and then to take the necessary steps to effect his rescue. On the following morning, therefore, he mustered the peons who still remained with him, and briefly explaining to them his theory of an abduction, dispatched six of them in as many different directions to seek for traces of the missing party, offering a substantial reward to the one who should bring him such information as should lead to the recovery of the missing white man; and then, taking a couple of sure-footed mules, set off in company with an Indian tracker to scour the entire neighbourhood, in the hope of obtaining some clue to the whereabouts of the missing party from some of the people by whom that particular part of the country was sparsely inhabited. And in order to avoid the loss of time which would be entailed by returning to camp at night, he took with him three days’ provisions for himself and his guide, intending to carry out as exhaustive a search as possible in that space of time.
Thus far the search had been prosecuted entirely in a forward direction; but at the last moment, before setting out upon his three days’ quest, it suddenly occurred to Escombe that the missing ones might possibly have doubled back and be making their way toward the sea coast, so in order to test the value of this theory he determined to return a few miles along the line of the survey and see whether he could discover any traces of them in that direction.
At this time the surveyors were in the heart of an exceptionally difficult tract of country, where the obstacles to rapid work were such that, since Harry’s return to duty after his adventures in the quebrada, they had not advanced very much more than twenty miles from that spot; thus it was still early in the afternoon of the first day when he found himself gazing down into the abyss, wherein he had so narrowly escaped a terrible death. By a natural association of ideas he no sooner beheld the scene so indelibly engraven upon his memory than his thoughts reverted to Cachama, his kind-hearted old Indian nurse, and her son Yupanqui, and he vaguely wondered whether perhaps either of these might be able to afford him any information or suggestion that would assist him in his quest. The more he thought of it the more did the idea grow upon his mind, and at length he came to the decision that he might as well prosecute his search in the direction of their cave as in any other, and he forthwith communicated his decision to his guide, who, somewhat to Escombe’s surprise, at once admitted that he was well acquainted with Cachama and her son, and offered to conduct the young Englishman to the cave in which the two resided, by a short route, if Harry would consent to be blindfolded during their passage of certain portions of the way. To this the lad readily agreed—for he was by this time becoming exceedingly anxious on Butler’s account—and thereupon the Indian, having hobbled the mules, demanded Harry’s pocket—handkerchief and immediately proceeded to blindfold the owner therewith, after which, with joined hands, the pair resumed their way, travelling for two full hours or more over exceedingly broken and difficult ground. Then the pocket-handkerchief was removed, and Harry found himself standing in the midst of a number of enormous fallen boulders at the foot of a stupendous cliff, and facing an opening in the latter which had all the appearance of being the mouth of a cavern. But by what route he had arrived at the spot he could not tell, for he was so completely hemmed in on every side by the boulders in the midst of which he stood that the surrounding landscape was completely shut out, nothing being visible save the boulders and the face of the cliff with the opening in it. That he was correct in his surmise that this opening was a cavern was now demonstrated by his Indian guide, who said:
“Be pleased to take my hand again, Señor, and follow me without fear. This is one of several entrances to the cavern in which Cachama dwells. You will find the ground smooth and even for almost the entire distance, and presently we shall find torches by which to light our way.”
And so, as a matter of fact, they did; for after traversing some ten or fifteen yards the Indian halted and, releasing Escombe’s hand, was heard groping about in the darkness, and a moment later the rattling of dry branches reached the lad’s ears.
“Now, Señor,” came the voice of the Indian out of the darkness, “if you will graciously condescend to produce fire by means of those small sticks which you call ‘matches’ we shall soon have light to guide our steps.”
So said, so done; and as the torch kindled and blazed up the pair found themselves standing in a rugged rock passage some five feet wide and about eight feet high, with a perfectly smooth floor which, in the flickering, uncertain light of the torch, presented the appearance of having been brought into this condition by human agency. It was not only smooth, but also level at the point where they stood. But even as they started to resume their journey—the Indian bearing the torch and leading the way—Harry saw that it almost immediately began to dip, and ere they had advanced many paces the dip became so pronounced that the smooth floor gave place to a long flight of roughly hewn steps, at first broad and shallow, but rapidly steepening, until they became so narrow and deep as to necessitate a considerable amount of care in the negotiation of them. To Harry this flight seemed interminable; there must have been hundreds of steps, for—although the lad did not time himself—the descent appeared to have occupied considerably more than half an hour; but at length they once more reached level ground and, leaving the steps behind them, proceeded to traverse a narrow and winding passage, the air in which smelt stale and musty, while here and there they were obliged to squeeze their painful way between long, spiky stalactites and stalagmites until they came to more steps—this time leading upward. Harry counted these; there were only one hundred and twenty-three of them, and they were not nearly so steep as the others; and then they ceased, and the pair came to a gently rising floor, along which they passed for about half a mile, finally entering a spacious chamber or cavern, where, very much to the young Englishman’s surprise, they found Cachama awaiting them with a torch in her hand.
It was perfectly evident that the old lady was intensely angry, for upon the appearance of her visitors she darted toward them and, shaking her fist furiously in the face of the Indian—whom, by the way, she addressed as Arima—she poured out upon him a torrent of strange words, the virulence of which could be pretty accurately estimated by the effect which they produced upon their recipient, for poor Arima writhed under them as though they had been the lash of a whip. For fully ten minutes the old woman stormed relentlessly before she was reduced to silence through want of breath, and then the Indian got his chance to reply, and apparently vindicate himself, for, as he proceeded with what appeared to Escombe to be his explanation, Cachama’s wrath gradually subsided until she became sufficiently mistress of herself to greet the young white man, which she did with more cordiality than her previous outburst had led him to expect.
“Welcome back to my poor home, Señor!” she exclaimed. “I knew that you were coming, and am glad to see you; but that dolt Arima enraged me, for he brought you by the secret way, although he knew that it is forbidden to reveal that way, or even the fact of its existence, to strangers. He tells me, however, that the matter is urgent, and that he adopted the precaution of blindfolding you so that you might not learn the secret of the approach, therefore I will let the matter pass, especially as I feel certain that I have but to express the wish and you will forget that such a way exists.”
“Certainly I will, Mama Cachama,” answered Harry cheerfully. “You saved my life not long ago, and I should be an ingrate indeed if I refused to conform to your wishes in so simple a matter as that. But I understood you to say that you knew I was coming to you! How on earth could you possibly know that? I didn’t know it myself until a few hours ago!”
“Did not I tell you that I possess the gift of foreknowledge?” remarked Cachama somewhat impatiently. “You had no sooner conceived the idea of coming to me than I became aware of it; nay, I even knew the way by which you were coming, and it was that knowledge which angered me, for I knew that you could not visit the cave by the secret approach except with the help of one of us! But let that pass. Follow me to my living room, where I have provided a meal for you; and while you are partaking of it you may tell me in what manner you think I can assist you.”
Ten minutes later Escombe once more found himself in the cavern which he knew so well, partaking of a most excellent stew, and detailing to his hostess between mouthfuls all the particulars relating to the disappearance of Butler and his party of peons. He brought his recital to a close by enquiring whether Cachama or Yupanqui had chanced to see any of the missing ones.
“No,” said Cachama. “They have not passed near here, or Yupanqui would certainly have seen something of them and mentioned the fact to me. But you have done well to come to me, for it will be strange indeed if I cannot help you. You wish to know what has become of the Señor whom you call Butler; is not that so? Very well. Seat yourself there before me, hold my two hands in yours, and recall to your mind as vividly as possible all the circumstances, be they ever so trivial, that you can remember relating to the doings of the day upon which the Señor disappeared, beginning with the moment of your awakening. Now begin, for I am ready.”
While the old creature spoke she was arranging matters in such a way that she and Escombe could sit facing each other, knee to knee and with their hands clasped, she leaning slightly back in a reclining posture, with her eyes upturned toward the invisible roof of the cavern. As she finished speaking the young Englishman directed his thoughts backward to the morning of two days ago, mentally reproducing every incident of the day, beginning with the moment when he arose from his camp bed, and intending to continue, if need were, to that other moment when, after the long fruitless search in the pine wood, he cast himself on that same bed at the end of the day and, completely exhausted, sank to sleep.
But when he had reached this latter point of retrospection Mama Cachama’s eyes were closed and, to Harry’s chagrin, she appeared to have fallen into a deep sleep. Before, however, his disappointment had found time to express itself in words the old Indian woman began to speak in a low tone, as though soliloquising.
“Yes,” she murmured, “I see it all quite distinctly, the white tents gleaming in the brilliant sunshine of early morning, with their ropes strained tight by the dew that has fallen heavily during the night; the peons moving hither and thither, shivering in the keen air as they make their preparations for the day’s work; the horses and mules feeding eagerly; the fires blazing cheerily and the blue smoke streaming straight up in the still air. Yes, and I see the two Englishmen, the old and the young one, sitting at breakfast in their tents. The elder man is tall and thin, with black hair touched here and there with grey, and a close-clipped moustache. He is dressed in dark-grey woollen clothing, and wears brown boots reaching to the knee. He is glancing through a little book as he eats, writing in it from time to time. Now he rises and, taking a whip in his hand, puts on a soft cloth cap and goes to the tent door. He calls to one named José to bring him his horse, and then gives the young Inglés certain instructions, speaking sharply as though in anger.
“Now the horse is brought, and the elder Inglés mounts him somewhat awkwardly, as though he were not accustomed to life in the saddle, and rides off, accompanied by six peons who carry long poles with small flags on them, also heavy hammers, axes, machetes, ropes, and bundles of wooden stakes. The young Inglés also prepares to leave the camp, and busies himself in examining certain strange instruments that are packed in boxes of polished wood. But it is the elder Inglés that I must follow. He leads the way over rising ground, riding toward a snow-clad peak that gleams like silver in the far distance, pausing occasionally while his peons drive a stake into the ground where directed by him. They proceed thus until they find themselves facing a bare rocky slope so steep that scarcely might a llama climb it; and here they pause for a time while the Inglés looks about him. Then they move off to the left, skirting the precipice until they come to a great wood growing on a steep spur of the mountain. They enter this wood and penetrate it for a considerable distance, the ground ever rising more steeply and becoming looser and more difficult as they go. Here the horse finds it so hard to keep his feet, and is in such constant danger of falling, that at length the rider dismounts and, leaving the horse standing, presses forward as though anxious to get to the other side of the wood, his peons following and whispering eagerly together. They are encumbered with the various articles which they carry, and consequently cannot travel over that steep, loose ground so rapidly as the Englishman, who carries nothing but his riding whip and one of the poles with a flag on it, which he uses to help him over the rough ground, and he turns upon them from time to time with angry words, urging them to greater exertion. At first they answer nothing; but at length the strictures of the Inglés goad them to retort, humbly in the beginning, but soon with such heat that he lifts his whip and strikes one of them savagely with it across the face. And at that, as though the blow were a signal, every peon flings from him his burden, and the whole of them hurl themselves upon the white man and bear him to the ground, the one who was struck raising his machete as though to split the skull of his enemy.”