I cannot look back on the days that followed our find of the Maya treasure without a mental shudder. It was as if the gods had put a curse upon us that was executed by nature herself. We started at dawn and had not reached the first edge of the jungle before one of the pack mules was bitten by a snake so venomous that within an hour the poor beast died despite all our efforts to save it. A case of tinned meats upon which we had depended for at least half rations, was found to have been spoiled by the heat and had to be thrown away. The game that we knew must exist in the jungle fled from us as if from a scourge, and not even the monkeys came within rifle shot. The very birds seemed to fly beyond gun range.
Twice we lost our way, once so seriously that we found ourselves in the borders of a swamp we could not cross, and had to retrace our steps through that steaming pestilential jungle behind, where we were tortured by venomous insects, and in constant fear of deadly snakes. We were lost for an entire day before we found the blazings of the trail we had made when entering, and the trail itself had become overgrown and tangled again with that marvelous and malignant rapidity which nothing save such a jungle can manifest. It was as if the jungle itself had become a huge enveloping serpent leisurely enfolding us, certain of crushing us in its embrace and leering at our puny, frantic efforts to escape. For unending hours at a stretch we struggled onward in silence, speaking never a word, irritable, weak, desperate. Sometimes thirst was added to our sufferings and starvation was ever gnawing us with sharpened fangs. A pony fell and could not rise, and had to be put out of its misery: A second pack burro succumbed through weakness, fell across a log, broke its leg, and had to be shot. Long before this we had abandoned every spare ounce of weight, and I shall not forget Wardy’s sigh when he considered which weapon he would keep, hesitated between a sporting rifle and a beautiful Gruener gun, chose the former, and left his prized gun case standing against a tree beside the trail.
“Good-by, old friends,” he murmured. “You have been with me through Africa, India, Ceylon, and around the world, but now we part!” And then, as if he could not bear a second’s delay, trudged ahead without a single backward look.
I began to be tortured by hallucinations. I could not sleep, save fitfully, and my rest was then broken by nightmares. I fancied that Ixtual had somehow discovered that we carried treasure in the packs upon our backs, and was becoming murderous. I’m not certain but that he did in reality suspect something after all! Benny began to croon in Arabic interminable and melancholy songs of the desert. The doctor took to muttering strange gibberish about glyphs, talking monotonously in a dead undertone for hours at a stretch. Only Juan, unimaginative, stolid, perhaps hardened to starvation, plodded doggedly on without ever a murmur of complaint or sign of wavering sanity.
And so, at last, ragged, staggering scarecrows of men, with scarred and scratched skeleton beasts, we emerged from that horrible jungle that seemed sullen and angry because we had escaped. I cannot to this day look at a brilliant orchid without hating it for the memories of those million orchids sometimes screening snakes that we saw in that hellish belt through which we survived.
There, almost within sight of a native farm, Ixtual added to our torture by obstinately, almost angrily insisting that we must take cover until nightfall, and add more miles to our travel before appealing to any one for succor. Wardy and I sought to influence him against his decision. Benny cursed him in frenzied, murderous Arabic, and the little doctor appealed and implored him; but he remained steadfastly obdurate and inflexible.
“The señores do not understand!” he said to me in hoarse, dry-throated Spanish. “We must not be seen here! We must not! Is it well to die after all we have endured, rather than be safe by suffering but a few hours more? Is it just to me to have been your friend and servant that I be killed for my follies of faithfulness?”
“Not by a damned sight!” croaked Wardy. “What say you, Hallewell? I vote we stick it out and do as Ixtual says.”
“And so do I,” I agreed; but Heaven only knows what that exertion of my last remaining resolution cost me; for I was at my limit of fortitude and did not care much whether I lived or died.