Chapter Twenty Three. In which Further Facts are Deciphered

Mr Cooper-Nassington was the first to realise the importance of this climax to the adventures of the four Jesuits.

For my own part, I learnt of their sudden removal from the Lake of Sacred Treasure, just when they had seen for themselves evidence of its possibilities of Utopian wealth, with feelings of mingled dismay and bewilderment. Then, argued I, we may be just as far off now as ever from absolute evidence as to what this extraordinary water really contains and to whom, in serious international law, it actually belongs. Even José shared my disappointment, and rose from his task of writing with an exclamation of chagrin and annoyance.

Only the Prior’s eyes danced with gratification and suppressed excitement; and when at length we both turned on him rather angrily and suggested that, after all, he might have a little sense of decent consideration about the matter and keep his mirth silent till we had got over the valueless character of the manuscripts, he absolutely laughed quite loudly and openly.

“Just read on,” he cried in that great, bluff, hearty fashion of his; “just read on. In my opinion nothing could be finer for the friends of England than this plain, unvarnished story of Father Thomas Bonaventure and his three companions. Why? do you ask. In my opinion for the most obvious of reasons. This document furnishes an absolute proof that when it was written—some centuries ago—the sacred lake belonged to an Englishman. Well, the point will next arise—can anybody else, or any other country, produce an earlier proof of ownership? If not, the issue is certain. The British Crown will seize it as the property of one of its subjects who died intestate; and, however much the good people of Mexico may writhe and wriggle—however much Spain may talk of the rights of pre-emption and other legal subtleties—backed up by our friends the Jesuits we shall stand as firm as a rock. ‘The lake is ours,’ we shall assert. ‘We shall find it and exploit it, and anybody who dares to oppose us will be swept out of our path.’”

Now this certainly was quite a new view of the uses of the documents, and I am bound to say that no sooner was it put before us in these terms than we realised its significance. Neither Casteno nor I was one of those obstinate, stiff-necked, thin-lipped individuals who take about six hours to see any point which they have not chanced to hit on for themselves. As a matter of fact, we were quite willing to admit that we had both of us got so lost in the actual story of the Jesuits’ travels as to forget the bearing of their discoveries on to-day’s events and hopes.

As a consequence, we turned again to the work of translating with quite a new object and aspect, not to discover so much whether good luck attended Father Thomas and his friends, now we knew that the waters did really contain much valuable buried treasure, as to see where England came in and how her claims would stand the light of a dispassionate examination.

As we proceeded we found the writer recorded that the Indians did not leave the four Jesuits very long in those caves, bound hand to foot, so that not one of them could move either to free himself or to help his companions. They were simply confined there until daybreak, and then the Indians returned with a lumbering bullock waggon, and, after giving their prisoners a meal of fish mixed with beans and a little rice, lifted the white men into this crazy vehicle, and, blindfolding them with great care, drove them all that day and the next night over a rough track, which nearly broke every bone they had.

The poor Jesuits themselves were in two minds as to the meanings of this attention. At times they would comfort themselves with the idea that it would be all right in the end and that the noble-looking Englishman they had seen in the boat on the lake would take care that no harm came to them. At other moments despair would reign, for, try as they would, they could not get a word out of their captors, good, bad, or indifferent, and this, they were sometimes certain, presaged evil fortune to them, and indicated that they were being taken away to play unpleasantly prominent parts in some hideous rites of human sacrifice.

Suddenly, however, their bandages were removed, and to their surprise they found that they were entering a town, pleasantly situated on a slope that inclined to the stream of a river, with a hill at either end guarded by a fort. The houses were neat and the streets regular, but, owing probably to there being so few wheeled vehicles, they were overgrown with grass. In due course they passed a church—a handsome building with a fine tower. The houses themselves were mostly coloured white or yellow, but in the very centre stood a magnificent building of white marble, in style something like a mosque. This proved to be the residence of the Englishman, for no sooner did they arrive in front of its portals than he came out and greeted them.

To cut a rather long and tedious story short, it appeared that his name was Joseph Beckworth, a well-known traveller of his time, who was supposed to have been lost in the interior some years earlier. As a matter of fact, he had purposely disappeared, through a disappointment in a love affair, wherein a girl refused to marry him because he was so poor. Vowing hatred against his race he had obtained a written concession of all that country thereabouts, including the ownership of the sacred lake itself, and with the aid of some Indians and negroes he had founded that town, the position of which he would not tell them. Then with wealth secretly obtained from the lake (whose sacred virtues he made all his allies pay golden tribute to) he had made the place what it was.

As it happened, he had none of the ideas of an autocrat. He was anxious that the town should flourish after his death, and so he had founded a proper executive government, consisting of a “Commandante Militare,” who had charge of the forts and of a small regiment of soldiers; the “Commandante dos trabelhadores,” who superintended the Indians engaged in any public service; the “Juiz de direito,” who acted as the civil and criminal judge of the district; and the “Delegardo de policia,” who had the management of the Indian police who guarded the sacred lake, and who had warned him quite early of the approach of the Jesuits; the “Vicario” or priest, and a few subordinate officers. Every night these men were wont to meet in one room in his house, in an airy situation, overlooking the river, and there they would sit for two or three hours over some native drink that was supplied to them and discuss all the day’s events and plans.

None the less, it came out quite clearly that Joseph Beckworth was the landlord in quite a feudal English sense, and even the Jesuits were constrained to record that, when they slily suggested he should let them come and settle there and help to educate the children of the place, he promptly refused.

“After all,” said he, “this is a corner of old England even though it has been dropped in the heart of Mexico, and I’ll have no man here cleverer than myself.” And the next minute he led them into the market square and showed them a great stone obelisk he had erected there, and on which he had engraved the Royal Arms of England and the following inscription:—

This Town,
To which I have given the Name of Londini,
Is the Capital of My Province of Tangikano;
And which, together with the famous sacred lake, known to all history,
is hereby dedicated British soil for ever!

Long live the Old Country, which never has room for its best or its bravest sons, but never fails to call them back in tender accents no British-born heart can refuse.

Joseph Beckworth.

This practically closed the interest of that particular record so far as we were concerned, for it furnished the absolute proof we sought. The rest of the manuscript was taken up by a description of the fine hospitality which Joseph Beckworth extended to the Jesuits, on whom, however, he was quite discreet enough to keep a very watchful eye, so that they never managed to learn more than he chose to tell them, and, although they tried very hard, they never discovered any kind of dissatisfaction with him. On their giving a promise that neither they nor any members of their Order would ever attempt to return there, or would even send to him spies or rival nationalities or missionaries, he very frankly told them the latitude and longitude of this town of his.

These most important facts were recorded on the third and the last of the manuscripts, together with many quaint and interesting directions as to the best way to reach the district, the best stores to take, the most useful medicines, and many curious phrases, not Portuguese, made use of by the Indians and negroes of the district, the repetition of which caused either feelings of hostility towards strangers, or of friendship.

This last was headed: “To those whom it may concern,” but, lacking the casuistry of the trained Jesuit, we found it difficult to imagine whom the whereabouts of Londini might concern at the time the record was penned, particularly after that solemn pledge of Father Thomas Bonaventure and his three faithful companions, which, we were bound to admit, the Jesuits in Mexico seemed to regard as quite binding—and none of the community were suggested to have raised any protest against it.

“And, indeed, it is a very good thing for everyone,” said Cooper-Nassington, who was in reality an ardent Catholic, “that they did not let Father Thomas Bonaventure’s experiences in the matter pass into mere spoken legend. Look at the strength which their painstaking record will give now to the case for England! By their letting the facts be treasured up then they will help the truth to be known now, and the cause of justice to flourish! After all, they might have had some dim notions of disputes that might arise in the hereafter, and so they determined to write these documents—”

“As they did many others,” put in Casteno gently, “which have proved priceless benefits to history and poor, puzzled humanity.”

I said nothing, for I knew nothing of these subjects, and my brain was not clear enough to discuss the points then, for it was dazzled by our good fortune. The Prior and the Spaniard soon came back, too, to the matter in hand—how best to utilise these documents. After all, we had not forgotten that Lord Cyril Cuthbertson and Earl Fotheringay were close upon them, and that directly they got a suspicion where they were lodged they would leave absolutely no stone unturned, with the aid of poor, misguided Doris and her father, to recover possession of them. The hunchback, too, was sure to want a hand in the game as well as the Jesuits, so it, therefore, behoved us to proceed with the greatest caution, and not to give our plans away until they were too well laid to be upset.

But what were those plans to be?

Mr Cooper-Nassington was all in favour of action.

“Look here,” he said in that great purposeful way of his, “while you fellows have been going up and down the face of the earth after the hunchback, and doing yeoman service I will admit, I’ve been up at Whitby fitting out a yacht. The stores are on board. The crew is engaged. I’ve arranged with the ironstone mine manager to draft off a certain number of his miners to Mexico immediately I give the word. Now why shouldn’t we three slip off to the Great Northern terminus at King’s Cross and take the next express for York and Middlesborough and steam off? In a few weeks we can land in Mexico, and after we have located the lake we can take formal possession of it, and if anybody upsets us we can appeal to the British Government for aid.”

“That sounds right enough,” I conceded, “but it loses sight of certain very material facts. In the first place, you forget that we should be followed by all the different enemies we have as hard as steamers could carry them. In a lawless interior like Mexico they would have us all, more or less, at their mercy, and ten to one they’d raise up religious fanaticism against us amongst the tribes who live around the lake, and, after a stern fight, they’d steal a march upon us.”

“More than that, Prior,” interjected Casteno, “you forget that the lake does not really belong to us, any more than it does to President Diaz, not even as much. By what right should we seize it? Because it belongs to England? Well, we have no authority to act for England in a nice diplomatic matter like this—none at all. There would be an instant reference by the authorities in Mexico to the British Foreign Office. What would happen then? Would Lord Cyril Cuthbertson forgive you all the old enmities—the bad quarters of an hour he has suffered from you since he and you quarrelled? Not a bit of it. He would rejoice at your fate being delivered into his hands in this fashion, and he would instantly repudiate your rights, denounce your authority, and might even go so far as to leave us all subject to the Mexican law, to be tried and treated as traitors only one degree cleaner than the Jameson raiders.”

“Then what would be the most discreet step to take?” queried the Honourable Member rather helplessly. “We can’t sit down and wait for something opportune to happen. It seems to me that we must move, and move at once!”

“That’s so,” I replied after a moment’s pause. “But we need not go quite as far as you suggest. There are several vital matters to clear up before we can dare to appeal to the public with clean hands. For instance, that mystery of Whitehall Court must be sifted to the very bottom. The police have yet to discover who murdered the Foreign Office clerk.”

“You mean Bernard Delganni?” remarked Casteno.

“Delganni!” I echoed. “Was that his name? What! that’s the name also of your founder. Surely, then, they were related, and the crime had some connection with the brotherhood!”

The Prior and Casteno saw my look of amazement, and, rightly interpreting it, exchanged looks of mutual intelligence.

“Tell him,” said Cooper-Nassington, with a commanding nod.

“I will,” returned the Spaniard, and now he faced me. “Since I have arrived here, Glynn,” he went on, “I have heard all about that crime, and very quickly now the truth will be given to the public. This Bernard Delganni, who was found stabbed to the heart in Colonel Napier’s flat in Embankment Mansions, was really a nephew and heir-at-law of our founder, Bruno Delganni. He was in the Foreign Office service as translator to the treaty department, but he never got over the fact that he was left practically penniless in order to endow this Order of St. Bruno, and for years and years and years strove with might and main to do us all the injury he could, not only with the permanent heads of the Foreign Office, but also with the officials in India and Australia and South Africa, where we had founded houses.

“Quite a short time ago, however, he changed his tactics. He had got mixed up with a music-hall actress, who had bled him right and left for cash, and had finally driven him to some most disgraceful expedients to raise money, which were bound to be revealed unless he got nearly fifty thousand pounds to clear himself before they were discovered. In desperation he came to us, but not by way of a supplicant. ‘Pay me this sum,’ said he, half frantic with rage and fear and the bitter passions of revenge which he had cherished ever since he realised he had been disinherited, ‘or I’ll show you up to the world!’ We met; we debated about him. In the end we refused to be blackmailed. ‘Do your worst’ we said, in effect.

“Well, as you know yourself, he was a friend of Colonel Napier’s, and so he hit on that foul scheme of mystery and suicide and impersonation you have read about. He rightly saw if he blew out his brains in a plain, straightforward kind of way nobody would talk about him or worry about him but that the thing would be hushed up as soon as possible. Whereas, if he pretended to be a man of note like the colonel, and was mistaken for him, and then proved to be somebody else, all London would talk, as it did. No doubt, amongst his papers he has left some hints that we were the cause of the crime. By that means he probably hoped suspicion would be diverted from his disgraceful expedients, and he would save his name from shame at the expense of ours. We shall see. All in due time will be made clear. But it can’t really affect us. We know too much about him and the actress to suffer. At the right moment we will communicate the real facts to the police.”

“Indeed, already we have done so. I went to Scotland Yard myself,” said the Prior. “Believe me, to-morrow’s papers will put all perfectly clear.”

“Then I can see what we ought to do,” I cried, and in a few graphic sentences I sketched out a plan of action that met with instant approval from both my companions.