I stood rooted in amazement, when my attention was attracted by Amos, whose behaviour was now that of a madman. He threw both his arms into the air, which action--in view of his hunched back and his pig-like, glittering eyes--made him look more evil and gleeful than ever, and shouted at the top of his voice:
"Found!" he cried. "The Temple of Cahazaxa, who fled from Cuzco with the Treasure! And now, boy, the matter rests with you!"
He changed as in a flash from unbounded joy to passion. He seized me by the shoulders, gripping me so tightly that it was as if his fingers burned into my flesh like red-hot irons.
"I’ll have the truth from you!" he shrieked, dancing like a maniac on his feet. "The truth, and nothing but the truth! Or else, I swear as I’m a living man, you die here and now."
My voice was trembling; for so terrible did the man seem that a cold sweat had broken out upon my forehead. He drew nearer to me still, peering into my face and whispering.
"Henceforward," said he, "you guide us. Either you have seen the map or Bannister has told you all he knows. In any case, you guide us from here to the place where the Greater Treasure is hid. Refuse, and you die, here and now, in the midst of this almighty desert."
One glance at the man was enough to tell me that he meant every word he said. And yet, I do not think I was any longer afraid.
I was now, it was apparent, in such a situation that my life was of little worth. Without doubt, Amos did believe that I was capable of guiding our little column to the place where the Greater Treasure was hidden.
He thought, perhaps, that I had looked at the fragment of the map I had snatched from his hand, or else that John Bannister had told me the full story.
As a matter of fact, I knew nothing. When flying for my very life from Amos, I had had other things to think of than to gratify a very natural curiosity, and had never so much as cast a glance at the map. And as for Bannister, I have said already this was the one subject upon which he could never or seldom be induced to talk.
Amos, however, held a contrary opinion. Somehow, he must have learned that for several months John Bannister had been a good friend to me, and in his own mind had never questioned that I knew all there was to know.