“You stay here till tomorrow, when I will fetch you to a safer hiding-place,” said Jack, speaking very slowly indeed. “I will leave you water to drink and food to eat.”
The boy meant to open a tin or two from the store still hidden in the bush. He could easily get them and leave them beside the man.
The man tapped his chest. “Otto Engler,” he said, and repeated it two or three times. Jack nodded, and pointed to his own chest.
“Jack Trent,” he said. “Me Jack — you Otto.”
“Friend,” said the man. “You — English?”
“Me English,” said Jack gravely. “You?”
“Austrian,” said the man, pronouncing it in a curious way. “Friend. Good friend. Why you here?”
Jack tried to explain how it was he and the others had come, but it was too complicated for the man to understand and he shook his head.
“Not understand,” he said. Then he leaned forward to Jack and spoke in a low voice.
“You know of treesure?”
“Treesure? Oh, you mean treasure,” said Jack. “Not much. You know — of treasure?”
“I know all,” said the man. “All! I draw you map — where treesure is. You good boy. I trust you.”
Chapter 17
A TREASURE MAP
JACK’S first feeling on hearing this was one of tremendous excitement. Then his face fell. He knew where the treasure was. Behind that fall of rock. What use was that? Nobody could get at it there.
“I know where treasure is,” said Jack, trying to speak slowly and simply. “I saw you show the men this morning — but the rocks had fallen together, and they could not get into the treasure-cave behind.”
The man gave a short laugh — He seemed to understand. “They are fools,” he said. “Big fools. There is no treasure there.”
Jack stared at him. “Do you mean to say — you fooled them?” he said. “You knew that fall of rocks was there — and you took them to it, and pretended that the entrance to the treasure was all blocked up? Isn’t the treasure behind those rocks after all?
The man was frowning hard in his attempt to follow all that Jack was saying. He shook his head.
“No treesure there,” he said. “I fool Juan and Pepi. Ah, ah, how they hurt their hands when they pull — so — at the rocks!”
Jack couldn’t help grinning. What a fine trick to play! Well, then — where was the “treesure”?
“I draw you map,” said Otto. “And I tell you way out of valley too. By the Windy Pass. You will go that way, you and your friends, and you will take the map to a good friend of mine. It is time now to find the hidden treesure, for surely there is peace for us all?”
“But why can’t you come with us?” said Jack. “Surely you could show us the way, Otto — the pass — and come to your good friend?”
“I am very ill man,” said Otto. “If I not get doctor and — how you say it? — middisin . . .”
“Yes, medicine,” said Jack.
“. . . middisin soon, I die,” said Otto. “I have bad heart, very very bad. I get pain very bad. I not walk far now. So you take treesure map, you good boy, and you take pass out of valley, and go to Julius, my good good friend. Then all will be well.”
“All right,” said Jack. “I’m very sorry about you, Otto. Wish I could do something. I’ll do my best to get to Julius quickly and bring back help to you. Do you think you might be able to walk to our hiding-place tomorrow, and hide there whilst we go?”
“Pardon?” said Otto. “You talk too quick, I not understand.”
Jack spoke more slowly. Otto nodded. He understood the second time.
“You leave me here today, and tomorrow perhaps I be strong enough to go with you to your place,” he said. “We will see. If not, you must go through the pass and find Julius. I draw you map now, and I draw you also the way to the pass. Windy Pass. It is very very narrow, but not difficult to, to . . .”
“To travel through?” said Jack. Otto nodded. He found a pencil and a notebook and began to draw. Jack watched him in interest. The waterfall appeared in the map. So did a queer-shaped rock. A bent tree came into the map, and a spring of water. Little arrows were drawn showing in what direction to go. It was really rather exciting.
Otto folded up the map. He gave it to Jack. “Julius will know,” he said. “He will read the map. Once he lived in the big farm-house not far from here. But our enemies burnt it down, and all the other farms too, and took our cows and our horses, our pigs and everything we had. Many they killed, and only few of us escaped.”
“Now tell me the way to the pass,” said Jack.
Otto once more drew a map. The waterfall appeared in it. Jack put his finger on it.
“I know this water,” he said, speaking slowly so that Otto would understand. “Our hiding-place is near. Very near.”
“So!” said Otto, pleased, “The way to the pass is above the waterfall. You must climb to where it flows out of a hole in the mountainside. There — I have drawn you the way.”
“How shall we find Julius?” asked Jack.
“On the other side of the pass is a village, half burnt,” said Otto. “You will ask anyone you meet to tell you where Julius is. They will know. Ah, Julius worked against the enemy all the time. Everyone knows Julius. He should be a great man now among his people — but times are strange and maybe he is no longer great, now that we have peace. But still, everyone knows Julius, and he will know what to do when you give him the treesure map. I will also write him a letter.”
Otto scribbled a short note, and gave that also to Jack. It was addressed to Julius Muller.
“Now you must leave me,” said Otto. “You must go back to your friends. If I am better tomorrow I will come with you. But my heart is bad today, so bad. Always it pains me here.” He pressed his hand over his heart.
“Well, good-bye, and thank you,” said Jack, getting up. “I do hope you will be safe here. There is meat for you, and tinned fruit, all ready opened. Well — so long till tomorrow.”
The man smiled a tired smile, sank back against the wall of the cowshed and closed his eyes. He was completely exhausted. Jack felt very sorry for him. He must get help as soon as he could, if Otto was not better by tomorrow. He and the others would get out of the valley by the pass and go and find Julius at once, whoever he was. If he was a friend of Otto’s, he might be able to get a doctor immediately.
Feeling much more cheerful about things, Jack went out of the cowshed. Golly, what would the others say when they knew he had the map where the treasure-cave was to be found — and directions as to how to get out of the valley!
Philip came running up, out of breath. “The men have just left the plane and are walking towards their hut,” he said. “Come on, we’d better go. Is the prisoner safely in the shed?”
“Yes. Hope the men don’t go there looking for him,” said Jack. “Come on — let’s get back to the girls. We shall have been away from them for ages.”
“We must look out for Pepi on the way back,” said Philip, as they set off. “He may have got tired of watching the waterfall and the girls capering about, and have decided to cut back to the others.”
“I say — do you know what I’ve got?” said Jack, unable to keep the news to himself for a moment longer.
“What?” asked Philip.
“A map showing where the treasure is!” said Jack.
“But we know where it is,” said Philip. “Behind that fall of rocks we saw this morning.”
“Well, it isn’t!” said Jack triumphantly. “The prisoner — his name’s Otto — he fooled them properly. He pretended the treasure was in a cave behind the fall of rocks — he knew the rocks had fallen, but he thought he could pretend he didn’t know about them, and say the treasure was blocked by the landslide there. See?”
“Golly, and all the time the treasure was somewhere else!” said Philip. “That was good work. Have you really got a map of the whereabouts of the treasure, Jack? And did you find out exactly what the treasure is?”
“No I forgot to ask him that,” said Jack. “But I found out an awful lot. I’ve got directions to find the pass that leads out of this valley — and a note to a man called Julius — and I know how these houses and things got burnt and why. Otto says if he’s strong enough tomorrow he’ll take us to the pass himself — but he gave me the maps in case he wasn’t able to come with us. They’re quite clear.”