It was the afternoon of a glorious day, and we were floating along in the broiling heat, now and then giving a dip with the paddles, so as to direct the canoe more towards the bank, where we could see houses.  There was a boat here and a boat there, moored in the current; and now and then we passed a canoe, while others seemed to be going in the same direction as ourselves.

“Harry, look there!” cried my uncle.

I looked in the direction pointed-out ahead, shading my eyes with my hand, when I dropped my paddle, as I rose up, trembling, in the boat; for just at that moment, from a canoe being paddled towards us, there came a faint but unmistakable English cheer ­one to which I could not respond for the choking feelings in my throat.

I rubbed my eyes, fancying that I must have been deceived, as the canoe came nearer and nearer, but still slowly, till it grated against ours, and my hands were held fast by those of honest old Tom, who was laughing, crying, and talking all in a breath.

“And I’ve been thinking I was left behind, Mas’r Harry, and working away to catch you; while all the time I’ve been paddling away.”

“Tom! ­Tom!” I cried huskily, “we thought you dead!”

“But I ain’t ­not a bit of it, Mas’r Harry.  I’m as live as ever.  But ain’t you going to ask arter anything else?”

“Tom, you’re alive,” I said, in the thankfulness of my heart, “and that is enough.”

“No, ’tain’t, Mas’r Harry,” he whispered rather faintly; for now I saw that he looked pale and exhausted.  “No, ’tain’t enough; for I’ve got all the stuff in the bottom here, just as we packed it in.  Ain’t you going to say `hooray!’ for that, Mas’r Harry?” he cried, in rather disappointed tones.

“Tom,” I said, “life’s worth a deal more than gold.”  And then I turned from him, for I could say no more.

We pushed in now to the landing-place, with a feeling of awakened confidence, given ­though I did not think of it then ­by the knowledge of our wealth; and leaving Tom in charge of the canoes, we sought the first shelter we could obtain, and leaving there my uncle to watch over the safety of the women, I set about making inquiries, and was exceedingly fortunate in obtaining possession of a house that was falling to ruin, having been lying deserted since quitted by an English merchant a couple of years before.  A few inquiries, too, led us to the discovery that there was an English vice-consul resident, to whom I told so much of our story as was safe, mentioning the attack upon my uncle, and speaking of myself as having merely been upon an exploring visit.

The result was a number of pleasant little attentions, the consul sending up his servants to assist in making the house habitable, and sending to buy for us such articles of furniture as would be necessary for our immediate wants.

I took the first opportunity of impressing upon all present secrecy respecting the treasure, for I could not tell in what light our possession of it might be looked upon; and then I hurried down to the canoes to Tom with refreshments, of which he eagerly partook, as he said at intervals: 

“I believe I should have been starved out, Mas’r Harry, if there hadn’t been some of the eatables stuffed in my canoe by mistake; for I’d got nothing much to swop with the Indians when I did happen to see any ashore.”

It was then arranged that he should still stay with the boats till I could return and tell him that I had a safe place, while as Tom lazily stretched himself over the packages in the canoe, sheltering his head with a few great leaves, his appearance excited no attention, and I left him without much anxiety, to return to my uncle.

The discovery that Tom existed had robbed our perils of three parts of their suffering; and now, with feelings of real anxiety respecting the treasure springing up, I hurried back again to the landing-place, to find all well, for the place was too Spanish and lazy for our coming to create much excitement.

“Say, Mas’r Harry,” cried Tom, grinning hugely, in spite of his pale face and exhaustion, “I’ve got you now.  I said you was to let me have a pound a week; I must go in for thirty bob after this.  Come, now, no shirking.  Say yes, or I’m hanged if I don’t scuttle the canoe.”

It was evident, though, that Tom had undergone a great deal, and was far from able to bear much more; for that evening, after telling the Indian porters that I was a sort of curiosity and stone collector, and getting the treasure carried up safely to the house which I had taken, he suddenly gave a lurch, and would have fallen had I not caught his arm.

“Why, Tom!” I cried anxiously.

“I think, Mas’r Harry,” he said softly, “it might be as well if you was to let a doctor look at me ­it would be just as well.  I’ve a bullet in me somewhere, and that knife ­”

“Bullet ­knife, Tom?”

“Yes, Mas’r Harry, that Garcia ­but I’ll tell you all about it after.”

The doctor I hastily summoned looked serious as he examined Tom’s hurts; and though, with insular pride, I rather looked down upon Spanish doctors, this gentleman soon proved himself of no mean skill in surgery, and under his care Tom rapidly approached convalescence.

“You see, Mas’r Harry, it was after this fashion,” said Tom one evening as I sat by his bedside indulging in a cup of coffee, just when one of the afternoon rains had cooled the earth, and the air that was wafted through the open window was delicious.  “You see it was after this fashion ­”

“But are you strong enough to talk about it, Tom?” I said anxiously.

“Strong, Mas’r Harry!  I could get a toller cask down out of a van.  Well, it was like this:  I was, as you know, in the gold canoe; and being on my knees, I was leaning over the side expecting you to swim off to me, and at last, as I thought, there you was, when I held out my hands and got hold of one of yours and the barrel of a gun with the other, when a thought struck me ­

“`Why, surely Mas’r Harry hadn’t his gun with him?’

“But it was no time, I thought, for bothering about trifles, with the night black as ink, and the Indians collected together upon the bank; so I did the best I could to help you, and the next minute there you was in the gold canoe, and not without nearly oversetting it, heavy-laden as she was ­when I whispers, `You’d best take a paddle here, Mas’r Harry,’ when I felt two hands at my throat, my head bent back, a knee forced into my chest, and there in that black darkness I lay for a few minutes quite stupid, calling myself all the fools I could think of for helping someone on board that I knew now was not you.

“That was rather ticklish work, being choked as I was, Mas’r Harry,” said Tom, with his pale face flushing up, and his eyes brightening with the recollection; “but above all things, I couldn’t help feeling then that, if I did get a prick with a knife, I deserved it for being such a donkey.  Then I got thinking about Sally Smith, and wishing that we had parted better friends; then about you and Miss Lilla, and about how all the gold would be lost; and then I turned savage, and seemed to see blood, as I made up my mind that, if you didn’t have the treasure, the Don shouldn’t, for I’d upset the canoe and sink it all first for the crockydiles.

“I don’t know what I said, and I don’t much recollect what I did, only that fox ever so long there was a reg’lar struggle going on, which made that little canoe rock so that I expected every moment it would be overset; but I s’pose we both meant that it shouldn’t:  and at last we were lying quite still on the gold, with all round us black and quiet as my lord’s vault in the old churchyard at home.  Garcia had got tight hold of my hands, and I kept him by that means so that he couldn’t use his sting ­I mean his knife ­you know, Mas’r Harry.

“It seemed to me at last that my best plan was to lie still and wait till he give me a chance; for after one or two struggles I only found that I was nowhere, and ever so much weaker; so I did lie still, waiting for a chance, and wondering that Mas’r Landell didn’t come and lend me a hand.

“All at once there came a horrible thought to me, and that was ­ah! there were two horrible thoughts ­that you had missed the canoe and had gone down, and that the raft had broke away from the gold canoe while we were jerking and rocking about, and that I was left alone here on this big river, with the Don waiting for a chance to send that knife of his through me.

“Now, you needn’t go thinking it was because I cared anything about you, Mas’r Harry,” continued Tom in a sulky voice, “for it wasn’t that:  it was only just because I was a weak great booby, and got a wondering what your poor mother would say when I got home, and then, I couldn’t help it, if I didn’t get crying away like a great girl kep’ in at school, for I don’t know how long, and the canoe gliding away all the time on the river.

“Getting rid of all that warm water made me less soft; and when Mas’r Garcia got struggling again I give him two or three such wipes on the head as must have wound him up a bit; and then, after nearly having the boat over again, there we lay for hour after hour in the thick darkness, getting stiff as stiff, as we kep’ one another from doing mischief.  And then at last came the light, with the fog hanging over the river, thick as the old washus at home when Sally Smith took off the copper-lid and got stirring up the clothes.  Then the sun came cutting through the mist, chopping it up like golden wires through a cake of soap.  There was the green stuff like a hedge on both sides of the river, the parrots a-screaming, the crockydiles crawling on to the mud-banks or floating down, the birds a-fishing, and all looking as bright as could be, while my heart was black as a furnace-hole, Mas’r Harry, and that black-looking Don was close aside me.

“I ain’t of a murderous disposition, Mas’r Harry, but I felt very nasty then, in that bright, clear morning, though all the time I was thinking what a nice place this world would be if it wasn’t for wild beasts, and men as makes themselves worse; for there was that Don’s eye saying as plain as could be: ­

“`There ain’t room enough in this here canoe for both of us, young man!’

“`Then it’s you as must go out of it, Don Spaniard,’ says my eyes.

“`No; it’s you as must go out of it, you beggarly little soap-boiling Englishman,’ says his eyes.

“`It’s my Mas’r Harry’s gold, and if he’s gone to the crockydiles I’ll save the treasure for his Miss Lilla and the old folks ­so now, then!’ says my eyes.

“And all this, you know, was without a word being spoke; when all at once if he didn’t make a sort of a jump, and before I knew where we were he was at one end of the canoe and I was at the other.

“Well, you may say that was a good thing.  But it wasn’t; for as I scrambled up there he was with both guns at his end, and me with nothing but my fisties.

“I saw through his dodge now, but it was too late; and in the next few moments I thought three things: ­

“`Shall I sit still like a man and let him shoot me?’

“`Shall I rock the canoe over and let it sink?’

“`Shall I go at him?’

“I hadn’t pluck enough to sit still and be shot, Mas’r Harry, for you know what a cur I always was; and I thought it a pity to sink the canoe in case you, if you were alive, or Mas’r Landell, might come back to look for it.  So I made up my mind to the last, being bristly, and, with my monkey up, I dashed at him.

“Bang!  He got a shot at me, and I felt just as if some one had hit me a blow with a stick hard enough to make me savage; but it didn’t stop me a bit, for I reached at him such a crack with my double fist just as he struck his knife into me; and then we were overboard and struggling together in the sunlit water, making it splash up all around.

“`It’s all over with you, Tom!’ I said to myself; for as we rose to the surface after our plunge he got one arm free, his knife was lifted, and I looked him full in the face as I felt, though I didn’t say it ­`You cowardly beggar! why can’t you fight like a man with your fists?’

“The next moment he must have struck that knife into me again, when I never see such a horrible change in my life as come over his face ­from savage joy to fear ­for in a flash he let go the knife, shrieked horribly, and half-forced himself out of the water, leaving me free, when, with a terrible fear on me that the crockydiles were at him, I swum for the canoe; and how, I don’t know, I managed to get in, with hundreds of tiny little fish leaping and darting at me like a shoal of gudgeons, only they nipped pieces out of my hands and feet, which were bare; and if I hadn’t been quick they’d have had me to pieces.

“No sooner was I in the canoe than I turned, for Garcia was shrieking horribly in a way that nearly drove me mad to hear him, as he beat, and splashed, and tore about in the water ­now down, now up, now fighting this way, now that ­wild with fear and despair, for those tiny fish were at him by the thousand; his face and hands were streaming with blood, and I could see that it would be all over with him directly, when, catching up a paddle, I sent the canoe towards him, to pass close by his hand just as he sank.

“To turn and come back was not many moments’ work; but he didn’t come up where I expected, and I had to paddle back against stream, but again I missed him, and he went down with a yell, Mas’r Harry, that’s been buzzing in my ears ever since ­wakes me up of a night, it does, and sends me in a cold perspiration as all the scene comes back again.

“I forgot all about his shooting and knifing me; and, Mas’r Harry, as I hope to get back safe to old England I did all I could to save him when he come up again ­silent this time!  Did I say him?  No, it wasn’t him, but a horrible, gashly, bleeding mass of flesh and bone, writhing and twisting as the little fish hung to it and leaped at it by thousands, tearing him really to pieces before he once more sank under the stream, which was all red with blood.

“I paddled here and I paddled there, frantically, but the body didn’t come up again; and then, Mas’r Harry, it seemed to me as if a strong pair of hands had taken hold of the canoe and were twisting it round and round, so that the river and the trees on the banks danced before my eyes, making me that giddy that I fell back and lay, I don’t know how long.

“When I opened my eyes again, Mas’r Harry, I thought I was dying, for there was a horrible sick feeling on me ­one which lasted ever so long ­ till, remembering all about what had taken place, I felt that I had only been fainting; and, raising myself up, I looked on the river for a few minutes, shuddering the while as I tried to leave off thinking about the horrors in it; but try hard as I would, I couldn’t help looking ­the place having a sort of way for me as if it was pulling me towards it ­ and I seemed to see all that going on again, though, perhaps, I’d floated down a good mile since it happened.

“At last I dragged my eyes from the water and they fell upon the packages, and they made me think of you, Mas’r Harry; and, in the hope that you were a long way on ahead, I took up a paddle ­thinking, too, at the same time, that if you was alive, as soon as you had got Miss Lilla safe you would come back for me.”

I did not speak ­I could not just then; for in a flood the recollection of the past came upon me, and taking Tom’s hands in mine, for a good ten minutes I sat without speaking.

“Well, Mas’r Harry,” continued Tom ­but speaking now in a thick, husky voice ­“I took up the paddle and then I dropped it again, I was that weak, faint, and in pain; and it seemed to me that before I could do anything else I must wash and bind up a bit.

“One of my hands was terribly crippled from my hurt, but I managed to bind a couple of paddles together; and then, rowing slowly on, I was thinking that my labour had been all in vain unless I could manage still to save the gold, when, happening one day to turn round to look upstream, I saw that, Mas’r Harry, as seemed to give me life, and hope, and strength all in a moment; and you know the rest.”