Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 729, December 15, 1877

In close proximity to these splendid ruins, sometimes under their very walls, our author found rude circles of stone, such as still exist at Stonehenge and in other parts of Great Britain, and in Brittany. Bidding adieu to Cuzco and its suggestive relics, Mr Squier in his journey to the coast passed over a stupendously high swinging bridge formed of cables of braided withes. This dreadful rope-edifice swung freely in space between two gigantic cliffs, which guarded like twin sentinels the rush of the deep and rapid Apurimac, one of the head-waters of the Amazon. It was something worse than the most breakneck defile among the Cordilleras. 'Never,' says our author, 'will I forget this experience. I can see still the frail structure swaying at dizzy height over a dark abyss filled with the deep hoarse roar of the river. My eyes grew dim, my heart faint, my feet unsteady as I struggled across, not daring to cast a look on either hand.' It was no wonder that the nerves of one of the party, an artist, were so shaken that he declared that rather than set a foot upon it, he would swim across the Apurimac. This he did, and found the water so delightfully cool and pleasant, that he resolved to prolong his bath, and placed the bundle containing his clothes and shoes on a convenient cliff, whence a perverse gust of wind blew them into the water. Long he pursued them, with no result except the conviction that he had lost them irrecoverably and his way as well. In this condition, foodless, garmentless, he wandered about for three days in pathless thickets. His feet were cut and bleeding; and his body, scratched and torn, was scorched all day by a blistering sun, and so chilled at night by the cold breezes that he was glad to bury himself in the warm sand. On the fourth day he staggered, faint with fatigue and hunger, to the door of an Indian hut, and the inhabitants mistaking him in his ghastly squalor for the incarnate genius of fever, which they dread above all things, half killed with stones what little life was left in him before they would listen to his story.

Mr Squier's researches abundantly shew that, possessing no written language, the Incas have impressed their history in characters which yet remain upon the scenes of their former glory. Their greatness may be traced in the splendid ruins of their temples and palaces. Their civilisation is abundantly proved by their bridges, roads, caravansaries, reservoirs, aqueducts, and perfect and extensive system of irrigation, by means of which vegetation was carried in terraces thousands of feet up the steep hill-sides, and the now desert coast blushed like a garden with the profuse luxuriance of the tropics. One may well ask, which were the barbarians, they or the Spaniards who soon made a Sahara of that which they found a Goshen? Their great fortresses bristling on every hill-side teach us alike the vastness of their military power and their great resources. Of their internal polity we catch a suggestive glimpse from their ample prisons; and we learn how they lived as we turn over curiously their household and agricultural implements, or mark with mute surprise the exquisitely fine texture of some mummy shroud, or the delicate carving on some long-buried goblet, or the graceful form and excellent workmanship of some fragile relic of earthenware. We can even make a guess, as we look at their burial towers and tombs, at the current of national thought on one important subject. They who laid the dead so carefully, so tenderly to rest, believed that in the far-off world of shadows the soul would live again.

A CAST OF THE NET

THE STORY OF A DETECTIVE OFFICER

CHAPTER III

There was nothing for me to do, that I could see, for a day or two, beyond improving my acquaintance with the factory hands, and keeping my eyes open generally; and in pursuance of this latter branch of the business, I got up very early on the following morning, and sat for an hour or two after daylight in the arbours or boxes I have so often mentioned. There was one great charm about the Anchor. It was low and dirty, decaying and disreputable, and the landlord was a drinking fellow, utterly bankrupt and hopeless, who troubled himself about nothing. His potman was sottish also, and too accustomed to riff-raff and queer doings of every kind to trouble himself about me; so I was thoroughly at my ease. All I saw which appeared worthy of notice was that the ill-tempered ferryman rowed out alone to the ship I have spoken of, and disappeared round its bows. I watched for some time, but did not see him come out into midstream; but just before I gave up my watch, he came into sight again. Whether he had crossed after rowing up a bit and had come back, or whether he had been lying all the time just hidden by the ship, of course I could not say.

I had told the potman that I was in hope of seeing a friend of mine who was going to Australia and had half promised to take me with him. I consequently shewed a great deal of interest in the craft, and asked him lots of questions about them. This morning I guessed that the ship (the ferryman's ship), was an Australian liner; and this was just the joke for the potman, who laughed till his beery cheeks shook again at my mistaking a slow old Dutch trader for an Australian liner. He was quite severe in his way of poking fun at me; but he ought to have pitied my ignorance, not ridiculed it – and so I told him.

I thought I would pass away the morning by going over to T – and watching Mr Byrle's house. I had learnt that he was to be from home all day; Miss Doyle had told me so herself; so I knew she knew it also; and if she had any suspicious visits to pay, or queer company to receive, now was the time: that was evident. Accordingly, I went to T – by rail as before, starting in the rain; but luckily, just as I got there it cleared up and the sun came out. To give me a chance of learning something, I got asking my way to a lot of places I didn't want to go to, just by way of starting a conversation, you know; and the man I pitched upon was employed in the goods shed of the railway, but did not seem to have much to do just then; and when I asked him if he could spare time to run across to the public-house with me, he said yes, he thought he could; and he did.

We could see Mr Byrle's house from this place, so it answered as well for me as any other; and while I was talking to the porter, I saw a tall young fellow, good-looking, but rather flash-looking too, go past, and in three or four minutes I saw him ring at the gate of Mr Byrle's house.

'Hollo!' I says to my railway friend, 'isn't that Sims Reeves? Does he come down here to give lessons?'

He was no more like Sims Reeves than I am, but his was the first name I could think of.

'Sims Reeves!' says the porter; 'why that's young Mr Byrle, as gives his father no end of trouble. You wouldn't see him there, only the old gent is off somewhere for a while. He went from our station last night.'

'Indeed!' I said (and then I saw the young man go into the house); 'and what's the quarrel about?'

'Oh, his goings on,' said the railway man. 'Why, I have heard that his father has paid thousands on his account; and if he hadn't paid one time pretty heavily too, this young fellow would have been in Newgate for forging his governor's name. He's agoing abroad, I believe; and a good riddance too, I say.'

'And what does he do at the house when his father is away?' I asked; and I really felt that our conversation was getting quite interesting.

'Well, it's the old story; a lady's in the case,' said the porter. 'There's a niece there that's over head and ears in love with Mr Edmund – that's his name – and he pretends to be equally sweet on her. But if she had seen only as much of him as we have seen at this here station, she would never – There's my foreman agoing into the shed! Excuse me.' With that the railway-man finished his pint and was off.

I considered a minute, and then decided I was as well off where I was as anywhere; so I borrowed yesterday's Morning Advertiser of the barmaid, and sitting down where I could watch the house, pretended to read. If any one had watched me, he must have thought I was most remarkably interested in the Money Market, for I had that part of the paper folded towards me without changing for a good half-hour. At the end of that time the door of Mr Byrle's house was opened and the son came out. I was ready for a start after him, let him go in which direction he might; but he came towards the Railway Tavern, my post; straight on, nearer, nearer he passed my door. I peeped out after him, and saw him actually come into the tavern, entering by another door the compartment of the bar next to mine!

I was in the common place; he was in one of those divisions where 'Glasses only are served in this department;' and so on. There was some one there already, for I had heard the occasional clink of a spoon and glass, and a cough; but there wasn't more than one, for I had heard no voices. I now heard some one speak; I judged it to be young Mr Byrle, and I was right.

'Hollo, skipper!' he said, 'what have you been doing to your face? Have you been fighting?'

'Fighting! – Well, never mind my face; I don't want to talk about that; I shall settle that account some day,' said a voice. (I knew what voice; I knew what was the matter with the man's face.)

His surly tone seemed to shut young Mr Byrle up on the subject, for he gave a sort of forced laugh and said no more about it. 'When do you sail? – for certain now. I must know to an hour to-day, for I don't like what I hear of things,' said Mr Byrle.

'Don't speak so loud,' said the other; 'you can never tell who is listening;' and there he was more thoroughly right than he suspected. However, they dropped their voices so completely after this, that though I sat right up against the partition, I could hear nothing more than a stray word or so, out of which I could make no sense, until at last Mr Byrle said: 'Time's about up, skipper.'

'I suppose so,' said the other. 'Well, you feel quite confident about her then; her courage won't fail, you think?'

'Her courage fail? Ha, ha! skipper,' said Mr Byrle; 'you don't know her, or you wouldn't say that. She'll come with the material, you'll see. From first to last she's never wavered; and look what a penetrating mind she has got!'

'Yes; she's clever, I think,' says the skipper.

'Clever!' Mr Byrle repeated, with a deal of contempt in his voice – 'clever! Who but her would have found out the scheme' —

'Hush!' said the skipper, stopping the young man, just as his conversation was getting, I may say, instructive and important. Then Edmund Byrle said his train was due, and posted off to the station.

A minute or so after I heard the skipper put down his glass as though he had emptied it, and then he too left. I followed at a little distance, and got into the same train with him, and got out with him, and still following, saw him go to the ferry, pick out, as I knew he would, the surly waterman; and I saw him rowed to his own ship, where the waterman left him and then rowed over to the other side. Very good. Then the skipper had gone to T – specially to meet Edmund Byrle; and Edmund Byrle had gone there specially because his father was away; and – Then I couldn't follow it up any further.

I went boldly into the Yarmouth Smack, and not seeing Tilley anywhere about, I asked for him under the agreed name, and was told he had gone to work on Byrle's wharf; not for the firm, but for some lighterman who frequented the public-house. This looked well; and if I got taken on, as I expected, the next Monday, I thought it would be very odd if between us we didn't find something out. Yet my interest in the business seemed dying away, or drifting into altogether a new channel, for I could not believe for a moment that Miss Doyle and Edmund Byrle, and the skipper and the sulky ferryman, were all linked in with stealing a few paltry brass fittings.

I crossed over before the old ferryman came back, and had my dinner in the tap-room of the Anchor and Five Mermaids. It wasn't a nice place for a dinner, and I was always partial to having my things neat and tidy, which was by no means the rule at the Anchor, and the company was not to my standard. I was late to-day, so I missed the factory hands; and there were only two men in the room with me; one was a costermongerish-looking rough in a velveteen coat and fur cap, which was about all I could see of him, for he was asleep all of a heap in a corner. The other was a man who had his dinner in a newspaper, and took it out, whatever it was, with his fingers, till he had finished it and then went away.

I was glad when he was gone, and I had the room as I may say to myself; so I sent my plate away, called for a little drop of rum-and-water (the only thing you could get fit to drink at the Anchor), and lighting my pipe, sat with my feet on the fender, to have a good smoke and a good hard think. I had sat there perhaps half-a-dozen minutes, and had fairly settled down to my thinking, when a low voice said: 'Mr Nickham!' My name! It was a very low voice which spoke, but the roar of an elephant couldn't have startled me more. In an instant it flashed upon me that my disguise was seen through and all my plans understood. Robinson Crusoe was not so staggered when he saw the foot-print on the sand as I was on hearing these two familiar words. I turned round, and there was that miserable-looking rough that I thought had been asleep, standing up and making signs to me. He was a regular rough and no mistake, with short hair, an ugly handkerchief twisted round his neck; his nose had been broken at some time or another, and he looked a complete jail-bird. 'Mr Nickham!'

It was he that spoke; no mistake about it this time; and he put his hand up to the side of his mouth to keep the sound straight.

'Who are you?' said I; for you know I didn't like to answer to the name at once, in case he wasn't certain.

'My name is Wilkins – Barney Wilkins,' said the man. 'But you won't recollect me by that p'raps; though I've been through your hands, sergeant; but I giv some other name then. You got me twelve penn'orth for ringing in shofuls.' (He meant that he had been sent to prison for twelve months for passing bad money. I wasn't surprised to hear it; he looked fit for that or anything bad. But if he got it through me, why he should speak to me now was beyond my comprehension.) 'I knowed you directly I see you, sergeant,' he says, coming nearer, but still speaking in the same hoarse whisper as at first; 'and though you're a tight hand, you're fair and square, and acted as such by me when you copped me. You are down here on business – you're after some rare downy cards. Now ain't you, sergeant?'

'If you know,' I said, 'what do you ask me for? And if you think I am what you say, you don't suppose I shall tell you my business, do you?'

'Sergeant,' he says, coming nearer still, 'you fought a man in the street last night, and giv him a thorough good licking. You was the only man there as would take the part of a poor gal as wasn't doing no harm to nobody; and I respect you for it, sergeant; I do. That gal was my sister – my young sister, as has been like a child to me, and was so tidy and pretty that I was proud on her, and hoped – Well, sergeant, whatever we are, we all have our feelings; and Sergeant Nickham, I'll do you a good turn. Look here!' With this he crept quite close and put his mouth almost to my ear. I watched him carefully, being much puzzled by his actions, yet I had seen such unexpected things occur in the police that I was quite ready to hear something of consequence from him. 'You are down here about that Bank paper, what is said to be all got back, but which you know it isn't. You are on the right parties, and it does you credit; but you'll never get them nor the paper without me.'

He stopped here, to see what I would say; but though I was ten times more surprised than ever, I kept my countenance, and only said: 'Well?' In point of fact I didn't know what to say.

'I've been used bad, Mr Nickham,' he went on. 'I've had a lot of trouble and risk about that there paper. I got it from B – , and took the money for it to him, honest; and have been as near took with it in my possession as anythink. Twice the slops (he meant the police; 'slops' is what we call 'back-slang,' a rough sort of spelling the words backwards) – 'twice they have come into my place when the stuff was there. Once I was sitting upon it done up like bundles of rabbit-skins. Now he gives me (the party wot I am down on) – he gives me five pounds, and I can't get no more out of him. And you see there ain't no reward out.'

'No, not regularly, Barney,' I said; 'but there's no doubt at all that any man coming forward would be very handsomely considered by the Bank people.'

'He might be, if he'd got anybody like you to speak for him,' says Barney. 'But you know, Mr Nickham, that I am wanted for a lot of things by the bobbies; and I have been through the mill so often, that without I've got a friend I don't half like touching 'em again. But you're fair and square, and you licked the fellow last night; and I'm told you can box better than even Tom Sayers could; and if that's so, I'll trust you. And this here man won't give me more than five pounds; and he has settled with a regular fence, a sort of Dutch-Yankee skipper, what pretends to command one of them traders out there.'

'Yes, yes,' I said; 'the man I fought last night. I know him.'

'Him!' almost screeched the man (although, mind you, he never once forgot his hoarse whisper); 'was it him you licked? Sergeant Nickham, I'd go through fire and water for you now, for I hate and despise that wretch; and if I had got a chance to do it safely, I'd have' – He checked himself very sudden here, as if what he was going to say wasn't exactly the sort of thing to say to a detective. 'I see you are on the right lay,' he begins again; 'but I tell you he has settled with that skipper to have the stuff put on board, if it ain't already there; and then he'll go with it to whatever foreign port the craft comes from.'

'And who is he,' I asked, 'who has arranged with the skipper?'

'Ah, Mr Nickham,' says Wilkins, with a very cunning look, 'as if you didn't know! Haven't you been on the lurk round his house for two days past? Wasn't you there this morning?'

Egad! I saw it all now! You might have knocked me down with a feather. I could hardly help saying something which would have shewed my astonishment; but I choked it down, and quite determined to keep the upper hand with him, I said as cool as I could: 'Now, Wilkins, no beating about the bush, or making me help you out. If you've got anything to say, any name to mention, out with it like a man, and I'm your friend. You understand me.'

'Fair and square you are, Mr Nickham,' says Barney; 'and so you'll find me. That young Mr Byrle has got the paper, and he means to go out with the trader. There is people over in Holland awaiting anxious for it; and if once they gets hold of it, it's all U. P. with our bank-notes. Now, I don't know where the paper is; if I had known, bust me if I wouldn't have blowed the gaff long ago!'

He meant that he would have exposed the whole transaction, and I noticed that this declaration did not quite agree with his anxiety to have a friend on his side, a point on which he had dwelt so much before; but that didn't signify.

'Now, Mr Nickham,' he went on, 'you must board the craft when the paper is shipped, if it ain't there yet.'

'It ain't there yet, my man,' I said, remembering what had dropped from Edmund Byrle, that 'she would come on board with the material.'

'Then I think it will be to-night,' he continued; 'for a sail-maker as has been at work aboard her says she drops down the river to-morrow; and I think by what I can learn in other quarters, he is right.'