George Fenn - Real Gold - A Story of Adventure

“No, boy; they’ll take their mid-day nap and wake up soon.”

And so it proved, for at the end of a couple of hours, the two men suddenly sprang up, caught the leading mule and led him back to the path, the others following and standing patiently to be laden.

Then onward again till dark, when the guides halted at a spot like the last, the fire was lit, the evening meal prepared, and, well tired out, Perry lay down to pass the first night in the awful solitude to which they had climbed, and gazed up at the brilliant stars seen between large walls of rock. He wondered what Cyril was doing; felt that it would be impossible to sleep cushioned on that hard rock, and fell asleep directly, as a matter of course.

The night was cold up there beneath the glittering stars, but when Perry woke up, warmly rolled in his blanket, there was a sight before him that was as new to him as it was grand.

Right away, apparently at the head of a long narrow valley, and high up toward the heavens, there was a huge peak that might have been the mass of glittering rock from which broke away the diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, rubies, opals, and amethysts, which went to form the valleys of precious stones of which John Manning had spoken. For it was all dark below, but up there one of the gigantic Andean peaks was bathed in the full blaze of the rising sun.

The boy lay gazing up, enraptured, thinking of the delight of climbing up into such a world of glory, and then rolling himself out of his blanket, he leaped up, with the stiffness and uneasiness of the past night quite gone, for the colonel’s voice reached him:

“Now, my lad, jump up; breakfast.”

At the same moment he heard the crackling sound of burning wood, and in a nook of the great wall of rock, where otherwise it would have been quite dark, the glow of a bright fire shone upon the intent, hard face of John Manning, who was baking a bread cake upon a disc of iron, while the two plump, effeminate-looking Indians watched him complacently.

Just below, the mules were cropping the green herbage, and from below them came the rush, roar, and splash of falling water.

“That’s right,” cried the colonel, holding out his hand. “Slept well? Find your bedroom draughty?”

“I don’t know, father,” said Perry. “I was looking at the stars one minute, and the next I was staring at that glorious peak.”

“Glorious indeed, my boy. Hah! There’s nothing like a tramp in the mountains, and a night’s rest in the beautiful, crisp, fresh air. Come along down to the dressing-room.”

“Where?” said Perry, staring.

“Down yonder for a wash,” said the colonel merrily; and, leading the way, they descended the precipitous slope to where the stream ran thundering by, reaching first a place where it was not above a couple of yards across.

“Why, I thought it would be bigger than this,” said Perry, “from the noise it makes.”

“Bigger than you think, my lad,” said the colonel. “There is an enormous amount of water going by here. I daresay that crack is a hundred feet deep. Look at the speed at which it runs.”

“Yes, it seems to run fast.”

“Seems!” cried the colonel. “Here, give me your hand. Don’t be afraid. Stop a moment; roll up your sleeve above your elbow. That’s it. Set your feet fast, and trust to me.”

The boy obeyed, and after making sure of his own footing, the colonel let his son sink down sidewise till he was nearly horizontal, and could plunge his arm right into the stream above the elbow.

It was a strange sensation for the boy to be sinking lower and lower, gazing in the gloom at that rushing, glassy water, which, as it darted along, carried with it another stream – one of air, which blew his hair about and felt icily-cold, but nothing to compare with the water into which he plunged his arm.

The shock was electric. It was as if he received a blow from a mass of ice which numbed him, and gave his limb a sudden snatch and drag to draw it from the socket.

Perry gave a gasp, and pulled his arm out of the torrent.

“Ugh!” he ejaculated. “It’s freezing.”

“Yes; would you like a plunge in?”

“What! there, father? It would sweep me away.”

“Yes, if you were a thousand times as strong, my lad. The force is tremendous. Come along here.”

He led the way upwards to where there was a fall of some few feet, and at the side a shallow pool of the water, wonderfully round, and forming a basin, giving them ample room for their ablutions; after which, fresh and glowing, they climbed up past the mules to where the breakfast was waiting, the hot coffee, bread, and frizzled charqui, or dried beef, being partaken of with an appetite Perry had never felt before.

Then the remains were packed up, the squealing mules loaded, and they started once more; now rising a thousand feet, now descending, but always following the stream deeper and deeper into the mountains, till the grandeur and weird sternness of the gorge’s defiles through which they passed grew monotonous, so that at the end of two days Perry began to long for some change and the open sunshine, away from the tremendous precipices which closed them in, and, in spite of the elasticity of the air, had sometimes a strangely depressing effect.

John Manning felt it, evidently, and sought every opportunity of keeping Perry by his side, so as to have a good grumble about the colonel.

“I don’t know what he could be thinking about, Master Perry, to come to such a place as this. It’s the world’s end, I say. We shan’t have a bit o’ shoe to our foot when we’ve gone a bit farther.”

“Why don’t you ride more, then?” said Perry. “You’ve got a mule on purpose.”

“What!” said John Manning, turning sharply round, “ride that mule? No, thankye, sir. I’ve seen him kick. I’m not going to give him a chance to send me over his head down into one of them cracks. I believe some of them go right through the world. Look at this one now. I can’t see no bottom to it – can you?”

He pointed down into the deep chasm along one of whose sides the rough path led.

“No, not from here,” said Perry, glancing down, and wondering at the absence of giddiness.

“Nor from anywhere else, sir,” grumbled the man. “Why, if any one told me that if you dropped down there, you’d come out somewhere by Simla, I should believe him, for I know they go right through.”

“Nonsense!” said Perry, laughing. “There, father’s beckoning to me.”

It was evening once more, and they were coming again to an opening among the lower mountains, where they would halt for the night. In fact, half an hour later the leading Indian checked his mule in a bowl-shaped hollow, where there was a dense little wood of goodly-sized trees, and a thread-like fall of water came curving down into a mossy basin, while the whole place was brightened by the reflection from the mountains, made dazzling now by the setting sun.

The preparations were made for the evening meal with quite military precision; the arms were placed near the fire, and, as if in imitation, the two Indians placed together their long stave-like blowpipes and bows and arrows, before helping to unload the mules, and then sitting down patiently to administer snuff to each other, and wait to be asked to join the meal.

“It’s very awkward, Perry, my lad,” said the colonel suddenly. “We ought to have had a guide who could understand us more easily.”

“It is awkward, father,” said Perry.

“Come and help me now, and between us we may make the man comprehend.”

Perry followed to where the Indians were squatting down in their loose cotton smock-frock-like garments, and at a sign the leader rose.

“The other man – where is the other man?” said the colonel in Spanish; but the Indian gazed at him vacantly, till in a fit of inspiration Perry repeated his father’s words as nearly as he could, and then began to count, laughing as he said in Spanish, “One – two” – and gave an inquiring tone to the word “three,” as if asking for it.