For all that afternoon they badgered me, trying intimidation, bribery and curses; and then, at last, they settled it amongst themselves that they would take me with them into Portsmouth, and thence across the sea into the very heart of a black barbarous country, where they hoped to find the Treasure of the Incas.
It was then, whilst we waited in the woods for sunset, that I saw myself, a lad of sixteen summers, launched upon a series of adventures, among strange peoples and in wild, romantic lands--adventures such as those of which I had often read, of the bold Spaniards who had followed Columbus into a new and unknown world, and brave blades of the stamp of Drake and Grenville, who--like John Bannister himself--were all men of Devon. That I was to be one of a company so glorious seemed to me all my heart could wish, though I went as a hostage with my life itself at ransom.
In a strange fashion, in very truth, did I begin my travels; for I journeyed that night to Portsmouth, not only bound hand and foot and tied to the seat of the dog-cart, but gagged as well; so that, by the time we reached our destination, I ached in every limb.
For three weeks we dwelt together in a lodging-house, patronised by seamen, in a poor quarter of the town. The landlord--a fat, slovenly fellow whose hand was seldom far from a pint mug or near a razor--was, as I guessed, hand in glove with Amos; for he must have known that throughout those three dreary weeks I was kept locked in a stuffy room, where I had neither fresh air nor liberty, and no better fare than is accorded to a convict.
I have said that we dwelt together, but this was not wholly so; for Mr. Gilbert Forsyth, though he was often of our party, had taken rooms in one of the best hotels. He was a gentleman somewhat fastidious in his habits, with a nice taste in wine and clothes, though--as he was soon to prove--he could rough it with the best of us.
Joshua, too, was seldom in our lodgings. It appears that he spent most of his time in the neighbourhood of the docks, on the lookout for an old shipmate whom he knew he could trust, with whom Amos could strike a bargain.
Such a man was eventually found. Joshua brought him in, one evening, and shortly afterwards Mr. Forsyth arrived, looking more than ever as if he had just come out of a bandbox.
This fellow proved to be the skipper of a barque, due to sail in a few days' time, bound for Caracas in Venezuela. She must call first at Liverpool, to take on a cargo of cotton goods, but would touch at no port upon the voyage but Fayal in the Western Islands, which are now called the Azores.
All this fitted in exceedingly well with Amos's plans. As I was in the next room when they talked the matter out, and they never troubled to close the door, I know for a fact that Baverstock bribed the skipper, and that Forsyth--who I suspected all along had undertaken to produce the funds--paid him as much as fifty pounds down, quite apart from the question of passage money, and there was more to come at the end of the voyage.
Gilbert Forsyth, indeed, was a member of the expedition for no other reason than that he supplied the sinews of war, else Amos had never taken him into his confidence and agreed to forego a third part of the loot. For all that, Forsyth proved himself a man of action and resource, though he never looked it; and things would have gone worse with Amos than they did, had he not had at his right hand one so capable and cool throughout those wild, adventurous days.