With Cochrane the Dauntless

by G. A. Henty

“I do not say that I would take you there, señor, I only say that I would try and do so. As I tell you, I have never journeyed far down the Madeira myself, and know not what the difficulties may be. For that reason I shall want half the money paid to me when we reach Cuzco, near which live my wife and family, and I must leave this with them in case I never return. I will think over what pay I shall require for myself and my comrade. It is not a matter upon which one can decide at a word.”

“I can quite understand that, Pita. I must of course keep sufficient in hand to pay my expenses down to Para, where [pg 296]I can doubtless obtain a passage by an English ship. But I am ready to pay any sum you may ask that is within my means. Now, Gomez, we had better go out and look to the mules, and leave Pita to himself to think the matter over.”

“The Indian will not overcharge you,” Gomez said when they were outside the hut; “the pay of these men is small. They value their lives lightly, and when, like Pita, they once take to the life of a guide, either to those who are searching for mines or to traders, they never settle down. They are proud of the confidence placed in them, and of their own skill as guides, and so long as they can earn enough to keep their families during their absence—and a very little suffices for that—they are contented.”

“I suppose there are mines to be discovered yet, Gomez?”

“Assuredly there are,” the muleteer said confidently. “The Spaniards have worked rich mines ever since they came here, but great as is the treasure that they have taken away, it is still insignificant compared with the store of gold among the Incas when they came here. Every Peruvian on this side of the Andes dreams of gold, and there are thousands of men who, as soon as they earn enough money to buy tools and provisions, set off to search for gold-mines or buried treasure. It is certain that the Incas buried a vast quantity of their treasure rather than see it fall into the hands of the Spaniards, and it has never been discovered. It is generally believed that the secret of the hiding-place is known to Indians, who have handed down the secret from father to son. This may be true or it may not. So many thousands of Indians have either been killed by the Spaniards or have died in their mines, that it may well be that all who knew the secret died centuries ago. But I do not say that it may not be known to some of them now; if so, it is more likely that these may be among the tribes beyond the boundaries of Peru. There are vast tracts [pg 297]there where neither Spaniards nor Portuguese have penetrated. The whole country is one great forest, or, in some places, one great desert.

“The Indians of Peru have become, for the most part, an idle, shiftless race. Centuries of slavery have broken their spirit altogether, and had the secret been known to many of them, it would have been wrung from them long since, especially as all are now Catholics and go to confession, and would never be able to keep such a secret from leaking out. It is true that there are little Indian villages among the mountains where the people are still almost independent, and here the secret may still be handed down; but I doubt if it will ever be known. Doubtless it is guarded by such terrible oaths that those who know it will never dare to reveal it. Pita has gone, in his time, with a score of expeditions in search of the treasure; most of these thought that they had obtained some clue to it, but nothing was ever discovered, and I doubt whether Pita himself was ever earnest in the search.

“In some respects he is like ourselves, in others he is still an Indian, and has a full share of Indian superstitions, so that his Christianity is no deeper than his skin. He would do his best to guide those who employed him to the neighbourhood where they thought that the treasure was hidden, but I doubt whether he would do anything to assist in their search, or would really try to gather from the Indians any clue as to its whereabouts.”

“But, at any rate, the natives could not very well have carried away their gold-mines.”

“Not carried them away, señor,—no; and that the Spaniards had such rich mines at first shows that they did learn from the natives—by torture, I daresay—where most of these were situated; but they got more silver than gold, and even now there is gold to be found in the sands of most of the rivers in [pg 298]South America, so that I think it was from washings more than mines that the Spaniards got their gold. Still, we all think that there must have been rich gold-mines in the times before the Spaniards, and that when the natives saw how villainously their monarch and all his chief men were treated, and how the Spaniards thought of nothing but gold and silver, they may have blocked up the entrances to all their richest mines, and in a few years all signs of the sites would be covered by thick vegetation. You see, señor, these things are talked over whenever a few of us get together, and though there are not many other things that we do know, you will scarcely meet a Peruvian who could not talk with you for hours about the lost treasure and the lost gold-mines of the Incas.

“There are many places that I know of where the sand is rich enough to pay well for washing, but they are all far away from habitations. A man would have to carry his stores and provisions and tools with him; and then, it is hard work, and a Peruvian does not care for hard work. As to the natives, there would be no keeping them at it, they would desert and run away at once; for not only do they hate work, but, above all things, they hate to work for gold. They look upon gold as an accursed thing, which brought about the conquest of the country by the Spaniards, and the centuries of oppression that have befallen their race; and even should a native alight upon a rich spot he would go away and never say a word about it, fearing that if he did, all sorts of trouble would fall upon him.”