Closer inspection was not needed to verify de Silva’s decease; but as the manner of it also concerned us we did.
Immediately back of the brush in which had been thrust this shocking exhibit there was evidence of a furious struggle. The Spaniard’s body also had been knifed, as were the others, and this within comparatively recent hours, as the fresh appearance of the wounds testified.
There was no sign of his companions, and somehow the conviction took form in our minds that de Silva—a man who at one time, we learned afterwards, had been a professor of mathematics—very likely the last surviving white man in his party, had been set upon by the others and murdered.
But we had little time or spirit to expend in comparison for this villain, who, after all, had received his just deserts, and soon we were again on our way. The Indians ahead of us may or may not have suspected our presence; at any rate, they were now making as good speed as we were, in spite of the fact that they still clung to the heavy golden statue.
We reached the vast primeval wood, without apparently gaining on them. Our burning desire was to get to the river at least as soon as the Indians so that that little matter of the possession of our canoes might be definitely settled, for without the assistance of our light craft we were, in the face of the rapidly approaching rainy season, doomed to certain death amid the maze of that alluring yet deadly tropical fairy land.
We had spent one day in pushing on through the big woods, when a most untoward event overtook us. That was the sudden and complete breakdown of poor Van Dusee. Day by day, I had observed his failing strength and I knew that it was on his nerve alone he had kept up with the rest of us. Poor chap! He lay now at full length amid the vaulted silences of those stupendous trees, babbling first of his beloved hemiptera and again of the profound art in the sculpturing of the Ataruipe. It was not permissible to carry him, for the man was actually dying before our eyes.
The pitiful sight was too much even for the hardened Hardy, whose eyes once actually filled with tears as he regarded the form of the plucky, devoted, defeated, over-idealistic man of science. At noon that day Van Dusee closed his eyes for the last time, and we buried him as reverently, but as quickly, as possible. No time was there now for sentiment. The delay of six hours might ultimately prove to be our death warrant.
All that unending night we drove on until at times it seemed that I myself must follow Van Dusee. However, dawn came at last, and with it the definite knowledge that Hardy had led us correctly, for there in the distance lay the fringe of verdure defining the course of the river that meant for us home and safety.
In that moment we needed no spur, and very soon we came abreast of the hiding place of our canoes. Zangaree, bounding ahead, disappeared into the thicket. His black face reappeared almost immediately.
No necessity for him to speak. His expression told.