“He is generous, this Gringo,” quoth Vicente. “He leaves more than he says. May there not be still more?”
And, from the debris of rotten wood, much of it crumbled to powder under their blows, they recovered five more coins, in the doing of which they lost ten more minutes that drove Torres and Jefe to the verge of madness.
“He does not stop to count, the wealthy Gringo,” said Rafael. “He must merely open that sack and pour it out. And that is the sack with which he rode to the beach of San Antonio when he blew up with dynamite the wall of our jail.”
The chase was resumed, and all went well for half an hour, when they came upon an abandoned freehold, already half-overrun with the returning jungle. A dilapidated, straw-thatched house, a fallen-in labor barracks, a broken-down corral the very posts of which had sprouted and leaved into growing trees, and a well showing recent use by virtue of a fresh length of riata attaching bucket to well-sweep, showed where some man had failed to tame the wild. And, conspicuously on the well-sweep, was pinned a familiar sheet of paper on which was written “300.”
“Mother of God!—a fortune!” cried Rafael.
“May the devil forever torture him in the last and deepest hell!” was Torres’ contribution.
“He pays better than your Senor Regan,” the Jefe sneered in his despair and disgust.
“His bag of silver is only so large,” Torres retorted. “It seems we must pick it all up before we catch him. But when we have picked it all up, and his bag is empty, then will we catch him.”
“We will go on now, comrades,” the Jefe addressed his posse ingratiatingly. “Afterwards, we will return at our leisure and recover the silver.”
Augustino broke his seal of silence again.
“One never knows the way of one’s return, if one ever returns,” he enunciated pessimistically. Elated by the pearl of wisdom he had dropped, he essayed another. “Three hundred in hand is better than three million in the bottom of a well we may never see again.”
“Some one must descend into the well,” spoke Rafael, testing the braided rope with his weight. “See! The riata is strong. We will lower a man by it. Who is the brave one who will go down?”
“I,” said Vicente. “I will be the brave one to go down——”
“And steal half that you find,” Rafael uttered his instant suspicion. “If you go down, first must you count over to us the pesos you already possess. Then, when you come up, we can search you for all you have found. After that, when we have divided equitably, will your other pesos be returned to you.”
“Then will I not go down for comrades who have no trust in me,” Vicente said stubbornly. “Here, beside the well, I am as wealthy as any of you. Then why should I go down? I have heard of men dying in the bottom of wells.”
“In God’s name go down!” stormed the Jefe. “Haste! Haste!”
“I am too fat, the rope is not strong, and I shall not go down,” said Vicente.
All looked to Augustino, the silent one, who had already spoken more than he was accustomed to speak in a week.
“Guillermo is the thinnest and lightest,” said Augustino.
“Guillermo will go down!” the rest chorused.
But Guillermo, glaring apprehensively at the mouth of the well, backed away, shaking his head and crossing himself.
“Not for the sacred treasure in the secret city of the Mayas,” he muttered.
The Jefe pulled his revolver and glanced to the remainder of the posse for confirmation. With eyes and head-nods they gave it.
“In heaven’s name go down,” he threatened the little gendarme. “And make haste, or I shall put you in such a fix that never again will you go up or down, but you will remain here and rot forever beside this hole of perdition.—Is it well, comrades, that I kill him if he does not go down?”
“It is well,” they shouted.
And Guillermo, with trembling fingers, counted out the coins he had already retrieved, and, in the throes of fear, crossing himself repeatedly and urged on by the hand-thrusts of his companions, stepped upon the bucket, sat down on it with legs wrapped about it, and was lowered away out of the light of day.
“Stop!” he screamed up the shaft. “Stop! Stop! The water! I am upon it!”
Those on the sweep held it with their weight.
“I should receive ten pesos extra above my share,” he called up.
“You shall receive baptism,” was called down to him, and, variously: “You will have your fill of water this day”; “We will let go”; “We will cut the rope”; “There will be one less with whom to share.”
“The water is not nice,” he replied, his voice rising like a ghost’s out of the dark depth. “There are sick lizards, and a dead bird that stinks. And there may be snakes. It is well worth ten pesos extra what I must do.”
“We will drown you!” Rafael shouted.
“I shall shoot down upon you and kill you!” the Jefe bullied.
“Shoot or drown me,” Guillermo’s voice floated up; “but it will buy you nothing, for the treasure will still be in the well.”
There was a pause, in which those at the surface questioned each other with their eyes as to what they should do.
“And the Gringos are running away farther and farther,” Torres fumed. “A fine discipline you have, Senor Mariano Vercara è Hijos, over your gendarmes!”
“This is not San Antonio,” the Jefe flared back. “This is the bush of Juchitan. My dogs are good dogs in San Antonio. In the bush they must be handled gently, else may they become wild dogs, and what then will happen to you and me?”
“It is the curse of gold,” Torres surrendered sadly. “It is almost enough to make one become a socialist, with a Gringo thus tying the hands of justice with ropes of gold.”
“Of silver,” the Jefe corrected.
“You go to hell,” said Torres. “As you have pointed out, this is not San Antonio but the bush of Juchitan, and here I may well tell you to go to hell. Why should you and I quarrel because of your bad temper, when our prosperity depends on standing together?”
