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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.
RGL e-Book Cover
Based on an image created with Microsoft Bing software
JACK GLENISTER was cleaning a rifle in the back room of his shack when his terrier, Patch, stood up and pricked her ears. A girl stepped in out of the blazing Brazilian sun glare.
"Ella!" Jack exclaimed in a tone of pure amazement.
Ella Campbell came forward and gave him both hands.
"Jack," she said breathlessly, "the diamonds are gone, and—and Dad thinks you took them."
"Diamonds—what diamonds?"
"I told Dad you did not even know he had them. Ferreira left them with him yesterday. Dad put them in the safe and this morning the safe was open and they were gone." A bitter smile crossed Jack's face.
"So because I know the combination I am the goat."
"Jack, you must not be too hard on him," Ella said quickly. "He has one of his bad attacks of malaria, and between that and worry is nearly out of his head."
"I'm sorry, Ella, dear. But what are we going to do about it? This makes it worse than ever for you and me. Shall I go and see your father?"
"It would be no use, Jack. He would not listen to you. I thought perhaps you might have some idea who had done it."
Jack shrugged his shoulders.
"The only likely person is Pedro Chavez. But he is away."
"He isn't. At least, he wasn't. I saw him late last night." The speaker was Alan Campbell, Ella's younger brother, a good looking youngster of seventeen; he had just come in.
"Where did you see him?" Jack demanded.
"Down by the river. He didn't see me. And I'll bet it was he who stole the stones. I told Dad just now, but he wouldn't believe me. Said it was dark and that I was mistaken, and anyhow that Chavez was rich, and what would he want with diamonds? But it was Chavez I saw," Alan nodded. "I'll swear to that." Jack nodded.
"Of course it was Chavez. The beggar hates me, and this was his chance." His lips tightened. "I'm going after him."
"Not alone?" said Ella sharply "I'll take Rafael. He's sound and a good paddler."
"Jack, you'll be careful," begged Ella. "Chavez is dangerous."
"Don't I know it?" said Jack with a grim smile. "Now you must go home, Ella. I haven't a minute to waste." He stooped to kiss her, and Ella flung her arms round his neck.
Ella left, but Alan stayed behind.
"Jack, I'm coming with you," he said. "Chavez has a long start, but I'm pretty sure he is alone. With three of us in your big canoe we can relieve one another and travel faster than he. And catching him means as much to us as to you. These diamonds are worth twenty thousand dollars and, if Dad has to pay for them, we'll be broke." Jack's eyes narrowed as he stared at the tall boy.
"If Ella agrees, you can come, Alan. Run after her. I have to put up some grub and find Rafael."
Half an hour later Jack and the mestizo Rafael were launching the canoe when Alan came racing down. He carried a gun and a bundle.
"All right," he said briefly "Ella let me come." He stepped lightly into the canoe, the paddles dipped and the long narrow craft went driving up the broad surface of the river.
Hugh Campbell, father of Ella and Alan, had founded a store at Cabreras on the Madeira River, which is a tributary of the Amazon and had done well. He was a hard man but honest, and his fame had spread far up and down the great river.
"Word of an Englishman," the natives said, quite regardless of the fact that Campbell was a Scot. They trusted him implicitly and brought all their trade to him. Campbell himself was intensely proud of his reputation and would rather have lost his last penny then forfeit it.
He had married a Spanish girl, and his children had inherited their mother's good looks. She was dead, but Ella and Alan, who had both been to school at Para, lived with him.
Jack Glenister was son of a British chemist who had worked for an American rubber company. The company crashed, Jack's father was drowned when his launch sank in a storm, and Jack had made good and presently he and Ella had fallen in love with one another.
One day Campbell called Jack into his office and asked him what he meant by trading on his own account. Jack stared.
"I don't know what you mean," he answered. "The only thing I have bought recently is a boat, and that was for my own use."
"That boat was laden with rubber," said the old man grimly. "Don't deny it. I have proof."
Jack's temper was hot.
"Proof!" he retorted. "Show me."
Campbell led the way to Jack's quarters. Jack had a little house of his own close to the store. He went into the back room and pulled up a board in the floor. In a cavity below were several hundred pounds of best Para rubber.
Jack was dumbfounded. He could only deny any knowledge of how it got there, but the other refused to believe him.
"If ye had asked me to let ye trade I would have given ye leave," said Campbell, "if ye had even confessed I might have forgiven ye. As it is, I have done with ye. The sooner ye leave Cabreras the better."
Jack flatly refused to leave, and that was how matters stood on the day when Ferreira's diamonds were stolen from Campbell's safe.
As to Chavez, the man suspected of stealing the diamonds, he was a principal land owner in Cabreras. He boasted Spanish ancestry, but it was notorious that his grandmother had been an Indian woman. Yet he was by no means bad looking and, on the strength of his money and position, had aspired to be a suitor for Ella's hand. Ella could not bear the sight of the fellow, and Jack had threatened to throw him into the river if he ever spoke to her again.
On the morning after this threat Jack had found in his room a cascavel, one of the most poisonous of Brazilian snakes, and only the chance that he saw it before he put his bare feet on the floor saved him from a particularly unpleasant death.
Small wonder he had told Ella that he knew Chavez was dangerous.
JACK turned the remains of the fried fish into a dish, mixed it with a biscuit, and laid it on the ground for Patch.
"The third night," he said, "and not a sign of the blighter." Alan was silent. He, like Jack, was seriously worried that they had not yet seen anything of Chavez. Rafael spoke. Rafael was a mestizo, a quiet, brown-skinned man of thirty.
"I think, Seņores, Chavez hide himself each night. He pull up his canoe and camp in the bush."
"That means he knows we are after him," Jack said. Rafael nodded.
"If he not know he suspect."
"Pretty risky sleeping in the bush," remarked Jack. "Pintados and pythons."
"Yes," said Alan, "but perhaps he prefers them to rifle bullets." He paused. "I suppose he did go up river."
"Bound to," said Jack. "Santa Ana is the only place where he could safely sell those stones."
It was long before Jack slept, but when he did his sleep was sound. Dawn was greying the sky when he woke with a tingling conviction of something wrong.
He had not far to look. Standing on the bank immediately above the canoe was an immense jaguar. Its great jaws were open and saliva dropped from its glistening fangs. Its green eyes were fixed on Patch. The little dog lay still as its master gazing up at the huge brute with fascinated eyes.
Jack was at his wits end. His rifle was in the bow. He could not reach it. He knew for a certainty what would happen. In a matter of seconds the brute would spring. Its monstrous weight would upset the canoe and, even if he and his companions escaped alive, they would lose their boat, food and stores and be left to die by inches in this wilderness.
It was no use calling to Alan. There was not time. It would only precipitate the catastrophe. Yet something must be done. Jack's eyes fell on a metal baler which lay beside him. His hand shot out and seized it. All in one motion he dipped it over the side, filled it with water and flung its contents full in the face of the jaguar.
The result was better than anything he could have hoped. With a coughing roar the brute shot right up on its hind legs, wheeled and, with one great spring, vanished into the depths of the forest.
The two sleepers leaped up.
"W-what—?" gasped Alan. A jaguar?"
"You bet it was a jaguar," said Jack "Biggest I ever saw. He was after Patch. I couldn't reach a gun so I chucked a pan of water in his face. And—and he scrammed." He began to laugh but broke off short as a rifle crashed in the bush behind them.
The three sat as if frozen, gazing at one another in blank amazement Two more shots rang out, rapidly followed by an ear-splitting roar. Raphael spoke.
"Someone shoot at the pintado. I think it—" His words were drowned by a frightful scream. The echoes had not died before Jack was busy with the stern mooring of the boat.
"My rifle, Rafael," he said as he sprang ashore. Alan, gun in hand, followed and the two forced their way through tangled creepers thick as an English hedge.
It took them all of ten minutes to cover fifty yards, then Jack Glenister who was leading, pulled up short. He found himself on the edge of a deep, narrow, channel of black water entirely hidden and overarched by huge trees. It was a creek running back from the main river, and, opposite, floated a light canoe.
Above rose a little mound of dry ground on which were the ashes of a tiny fire. And beyond the fire a booted foot stuck up awkwardly out of a patch of siba bush.
"Chavez," said Alan in a whisper.
"All that's left of him," added Jack curtly. "Lets go back and get our own boat."
Return was easier and it was not long before they found the mouth of the little creek and poled their own canoe up it. Reaching the mound. Alan was for jumping out, but Jack flung up a hand.
"Steady!" he warned him. The pintado may be waiting. I'll go first with the rifle."
With his finger on the trigger Jack went cautiously up the mound. He gained the top and looked carefully around.
"No sign of the brute," he said, and Alan came up quickly. Then, as he saw what lay beyond, he stopped short, and his face went white.
"A nasty mess," Jack said. "Get back Alan, while I look for the diamonds." He stooped over the mangled body, and presently stepped back holding a packet rolled up in leather and firmly tied.
"Here they are, Alan. See if they're all right."
Alan opened the parcel and stared at a score of rough black crystals. "Carbonados!" he gasped.
"Carbonados!" Jack agreed. "Black diamonds—and not worth two hundred, let alone twenty thousand dollars."
His disappointment was so acute he felt almost sick. He had been so sure of putting himself right in old Campbell's eyes, and now all he had to bring back was this beggarly lot of black crystals. Alan was speaking again.
"It's plain enough what happened. Jack. In his hurry Chavez took the wrong parcel. Ferreira's diamonds are still in the safe."
"Surely your father would not have made such a mistake," Jack said.
"Why not? Remember he already had fever on him when he found the safe open. He took it for granted that the thief had stolen Ferreira's parcel." Alan paused, and suddenly his expression changed "Tie them up again, he said quickly. "We'll take them straight back. Dad will never know they are not the real diamonds." Jack tied up the parcel and thrust it into his jacket pocket.
Travelling down stream is quicker than bucking the current and on the second evening the three were back at Cabreras. Ella met them, and her eyes lit when Alan told her they had been successful. She said that her father was better, but still in bed.
"Has he been to the safe? Alan asked quickly.
"Not that I know of, said Ella, and Alan sighed with relief. Arrived at the house, Alan stepped on the broad verandah.
"Give me the parcel, Jack, he said. "I'll put it in the safe." Jack shook his head.
"No, Alan. It's not good enough. Even if your father thinks I'm a crook. I've never yet told him a lie, and I'm not starting now. Take the parcel to him and tell him the real stones are still in the safe."
"You're crazy!" said Alan angrily.
"I wouldna call him that, Alan," came a deep voice, and old Campbell hoisted his big body out of a deep chair. In the dim light none of them had seen him.
"Jack," he went on, "I have been to the safe and found Ferreira's diamonds. Noo will ye tell me just what's happened?"
Jack's story was brief, yet seemed to satisfy Campbell.
"So Chavez is dead," he said slowly. "And small loss to any but himself."
"I'll bet it was he who hid that rubber in Jack's shack," put in Alan.
"Aye!" said the old man. "It is na unlikely. Jack, I am thinking I have been unfair to ye, and what ye said just now to Alan made me sure of it. Will ye come back to me? And I'll not be doubting ye again." He smiled. "Word of an Englishman," he ended.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.