essayed to test the wonders of that strange and silent pool, butthey got no farther than the brink of the water.
All at once, the parchment record stated, a loud commanding voice rangout across its misty expanse, and an Englishman suddenly appeared in thetwilight in front of them in a magnificent boat rowed from stem to sternby Indians.
"Begone! begone!" he cried; "all this water is mine. I have bought it.I will let none of you touch it--no, not one!"
And before the Jesuits could utter a word in answer they foundthemselves suddenly surrounded by Indians, who had crept up to themunawares, and they were dragged rapidly into the depths of a dark, andseemingly impenetrable, network of caves some distance off.
And that was the last they saw of the lake of submerged treasure.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.
IN WHICH FURTHER FACTS ARE DECIPHERED.
Mr Cooper-Nassington was the first to realise the importance of thisclimax to the adventures of the four Jesuits.
For my own part, I learnt of their sudden removal from the Lake ofSacred Treasure, just when they had seen for themselves evidence of itspossibilities of Utopian wealth, with feelings of mingled dismay andbewilderment. Then, argued I, we may be just as far off now as everfrom absolute evidence as to what this extraordinary water reallycontains and to whom, in serious international law, it actually belongs.Even Jose shared my disappointment, and rose from his task of writingwith an exclamation of chagrin and annoyance.
Only the Prior's eyes danced with gratification and suppressedexcitement; and when at length we both turned on him rather angrily andsuggested that, after all, he might have a little sense of decentconsideration about the matter and keep his mirth silent till we had gotover the valueless character of the manuscripts, he absolutely laughedquite loudly and openly.
"Just read on," he cried in that great, bluff, hearty fashion of his;"just read on. In my opinion nothing could be finer for the friends ofEngland than this plain, unvarnished story of Father Thomas Bonaventureand his three companions. Why? do you ask. In my opinion for the mostobvious of reasons. This document furnishes an absolute proof that whenit was written--some centuries ago--the sacred lake belonged to anEnglishman. Well, the point will next arise--can anybody else, or anyother country, produce an earlier proof of ownership? If not, the issueis certain. The British Crown will seize it as the property of one ofits subjects who died intestate; and, however much the good people ofMexico may writhe and wriggle--however much Spain may talk of the rightsof pre-emption and other legal subtleties--backed up by our friends theJesuits we shall stand as firm as a rock. `The lake is ours,' we shallassert. `We shall find it and exploit it, and anybody who dares tooppose us will be swept out of our path.'"
Now this certainly was quite a new view of the uses of the documents,and I am bound to say that no sooner was it put before us in these termsthan we realised its significance. Neither Casteno nor I was one ofthose obstinate, stiff-necked, thin-lipped individuals who take aboutsix hours to see any point which they have not chanced to hit on forthemselves. As a matter of fact, we were quite willing to admit that wehad both of us got so lost in the actual story of the Jesuits' travelsas to forget the bearing of their discoveries on to-day's events andhopes.
As a consequence, we turned again to the work of translating with quitea new object and aspect, not to discover so much whether good luckattended Father Thomas and his friends, now we knew that the waters didreally contain much valuable buried treasure, as to see where Englandcame in and how her claims would stand the light of a dispassionateexamination.
As we proceeded we found the writer recorded that the Indians did notleave the four Jesuits very long in those caves, bound hand to foot, sothat not one of them could move either to free himself or to help hiscompanions. They were simply confined there until daybreak, and thenthe Indians returned with a lumbering bullock waggon, and, after givingtheir prisoners a meal of fish mixed with beans and a little rice,lifted the white men into this crazy vehicle, and, blindfolding themwith great care, drove them all that day and the next night over a roughtrack, which nearly broke every bone they had.
The poor Jesuits themselves were in two minds as to the meanings of thisattention. At times they would comfort themselves with the idea that itwould be all right in the end and that the noble-looking Englishman theyhad seen in the boat on the lake would take care that no harm came tothem. At other moments despair would reign, for, try as they would,they could not get a word out of their captors, good, bad, orindifferent, and this, they were sometimes certain, presaged evilfortune to them, and indicated that they were being taken away to playunpleasantly prominent parts in some hideous rites of human sacrifice.
Suddenly, however, their bandages were removed, and to their surprisethey found that they were entering a town, pleasantly situated on aslope that inclined to the stream of a river, with a hill at either endguarded by a fort. The houses were neat and the streets regular, but,owing probably to there being so few wheeled vehicles, they wereovergrown with grass. In due course they passed a church--a handsomebuilding with a fine tower. The houses themselves were mostly colouredwhite or yellow, but in the very centre stood a magnificent building ofwhite marble, in style something like a mosque. This proved to be theresidence of the Englishman, for no sooner did they arrive in front ofits portals than he came out and greeted them.
To cut a rather long and tedious story short, it appeared that his namewas Joseph Beckworth, a well-known traveller of his time, who wassupposed to have been lost in the interior some years earlier. As amatter of fact, he had purposely disappeared, through a disappointmentin a love affair, wherein a girl refused to marry him because he was sopoor. Vowing hatred against his race he had obtained a writtenconcession of all that country thereabouts, including the ownership ofthe sacred lake itself, and with the aid of some Indians and negroes hehad founded that town, the position of which he would not tell them.Then with wealth secretly obtained from the lake (whose sacred virtueshe made all his allies pay golden tribute to) he had made the place whatit was.
As it happened, he had none of the ideas of an autocrat. He was anxiousthat the town should flourish after his death, and so he had founded aproper executive government, consisting of a "Commandante Militare," whohad charge of the forts and of a small regiment of soldiers; the"Commandante dos trabelhadores," who superintended the Indians engagedin any public service; the "Juiz de direito," who acted as the civil andcriminal judge of the district; and the "Delegardo de policia," who hadthe management of the Indian police who guarded the sacred lake, and whohad warned him quite early of the approach of the Jesuits; the "Vicario"or priest, and a few subordinate officers. Every night these men werewont to meet in one room in his house, in an airy situation, overlookingthe river, and there they would sit for two or three hours over somenative drink that was supplied to them and discuss all the day's eventsand plans.
None the less, it came out quite clearly that Joseph Beckworth was thelandlord in quite a feudal English sense, and even the Jesuits wereconstrained to record that, when they slily suggested he should let themcome and settle there and help to educate the children of the place, hepromptly refused.
"After all," said he, "this is a corner of old England even though ithas been dropped in the heart of Mexico, and I'll have no man herecleverer than myself." And the next minute he led them into the marketsquare and showed them a great stone obelisk he had erected there, andon which he had engraved the Royal Arms of England and the followinginscription:--
This Town, To which I have given the Name of Londini, Is the Capital of My Province of Tangikano; And which, together with the famous sacred lake, known to all history, is hereby dedicated British soil for ever!
Long live the Old Country, which never has room for its best or itsbravest sons, but never fails to call them back in tender accents noBritish-born heart can refuse.
Joseph Beckworth.
This practically closed the interest of that particular r
ecord so far aswe were concerned, for it furnished the absolute proof we sought. Therest of the manuscript was taken up by a description of the finehospitality which Joseph Beckworth extended to the Jesuits, on whom,however, he was quite discreet enough to keep a very watchful eye, sothat they never managed to learn more than he chose to tell them, and,although they tried very hard, they never discovered any kind ofdissatisfaction with him. On their giving a promise that neither theynor any members of their Order would ever attempt to return there, orwould even send to him spies or rival nationalities or missionaries, hevery frankly told them the latitude and longitude of this town of his.
These most important facts were recorded on the third and the last ofthe manuscripts, together with many quaint and interesting directions asto the best way to reach the district, the best stores to take, the mostuseful medicines, and many curious phrases, not Portuguese, made
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