Алистер Маклин - River of Death

It seemed as if the awed silence would last for ever. Serrano, at last, was the first to speak.

‘The lost treasure of the Indies. The El Dorado of a million dreams. The Spanish always believed that some vanished tribe had taken with them a huge treasure trove such as this: mankind has believed in the myth ever since and thousands have lost their lives in the search for El Dorado. But it was no myth, no myth.’

Serrano, it was clear, was scarcely capable of believing the evidence of his eyes.

‘It was a myth, all right,’ Hamilton said. ‘But the golden treasure was there all right but everybody looked for it in the wrong place – up in the Guianas. And they all looked for the wrong thing – they thought it was royal Inca gold. But it wasn’t. The people who made these were the Quimbaya of the Cauca valley, the greatest masters of the goldsmith’s art in history. For them gold had no commercial value, it was solely a thing of beauty.’

‘And the Spaniards would have melted the lot and sent it back to Spain in ingot form. Mr Hamilton, you have done the world of art an immeasurable service. And you were the only non-Indian alive who knew of this. You could have been the richest man alive.’

Hamilton shrugged. ‘Once a Quimbaya, always a Quimbaya.’

Ramirez said: ‘What will become of this?’

‘It is to be a national museum. The rightful owners, the Muscias, will return and become the custodians. Few people, I’m afraid, will ever see this – just accredited scholars from all over the world and but a few of those at a time. The Brazilian government – who don’t even know the location of this place yet – is determined that the Muscias, what’s left of them, will not be destroyed by civilisation.’

Hamilton looked at von Manteuffel who was gazing, trance-like, at the immense fortune that had lain beneath his feet. He was stunned. But then so, too, was everyone else.

Hamilton said: ‘Von Manteuffel.’ Von Manteuffel turned his head slowly and looked at him like a sightless man.

‘Come. I have one last thing to show you.’

Hamilton led the way into another, much smaller cavern. Side by side at the far end lay two stone sarcophagi. Above each was a plain pine board with poker-burnt inscriptions.

Hamilton said: ‘A friend of mine did those, von Manteuffel. Jim Clinton. Remember Jim Clinton? You should. After all, you murdered him shortly afterwards. Read them. Read them aloud.’

Still in the same odd sightless fashion von Manteuffel looked slowly around, looked at Hamilton, and read: ‘Dr Hannibal Huston. R.I.P.’

‘And the other?’ Hamilton said.

‘Lucy Huston Hamilton. Beloved wife of John Hamilton. R.I.P.’

Everyone stared at Hamilton. Shocked comprehension came slowly but it came.

Von Manteuffel said: ‘I am a dead man.’

Hamilton, with Ramon and Navarro, von Manteuffel and the others trudging along closely behind, made their way to a helicopter which was parked at the edge of the courtyard only yards from the rim of the plateau. Suddenly von Manteuffel, wrists still handcuffed behind his back, ran towards the edge of the cliff. Ramon started after him, but Hamilton caught him by the arm.

‘Let him be. You heard what he said. He’s a dead man.’

Alistair MacLean, the son of a Scots minister, was born in 1922 and brought up in the Scottish Highlands. In 1941 at the age of eighteen he joined the Royal Navy; two-and-a-half years spent aboard a cruiser was later to give him the background for HMS Ulysses , his first novel, the outstanding documentary novel on the war at sea. After the war, he gained an English honours degree at Glasgow University, and became a schoolmaster. In 1983 he was awarded a D.Litt. from the same university.

By the early 1970s he was one of the top 10 bestselling authors in the world, and the biggest-selling Briton. He wrote twenty-nine worldwide bestsellers that have sold more than 30 million copies, and many of which have been filmed, including The Guns of Navarone, Where Eagles Dare, Fear is the Key and Ice Station Zebra. He is now recognized as one of the outstanding popular writers of the 20th century. Alistair MacLean died in 1987 at his home in Switzerland.