CENTURY OLD CAVERNS
Johnny was still in the land of the lost Mayas. The city he and Jean had
discovered was not the city of Jean’s dreams, the golden metropolis of
long ago, yet there were signs of past glory all about them. Massive
ruins that had once been a pyramid, elaborately carved shafts reaching
toward the sky, great squares and slabs of stone, all told of the glory
that had departed.
“Think what it must have been!” said Jean as, on their third day among
the Mayas, she sat high upon a carved rock and allowed her eyes to roam
over the ruins of what must have been a majestic temple. “Just think what
it was! Such a labyrinth of corridors! Such chambers! Such secret
recesses. One might have been lost among them for hours!”
There was a rocky wall running along one side of the city. This merely
suggested a prison. But for all that, it might as well have been a prison
wall. They were prisoners. They had learned this on the second day. With
the vision of the red lure burning brightly in his eyes, Johnny had
proposed that they find the way over which they had come, and try
following it back. They had experienced little difficulty in finding the
trail, but once they came to the spot where it entered the jungle, they
had found it completely blocked by grim little brown men. These offered
no violence, but neither would they move aside and allow them to pass.
They blocked the way and shook their heads.
“Orders of the Chief,” Roderick had said. “I expected that.”
So their first attempt at escape had failed.
Prisoners though they were, they had been given the range of the city and
the surrounding open spaces where corn waved in the bright sun, where
banana plants reared themselves to the sky and cocoanut palms waved long
plumes in air.
No guests could have been treated more royally. The best of food, wild
turkey, deer, armadillo, the best of meats, the finest of corn cakes, the
most delicious of fruits were served to them. At night they lay upon beds
that rivaled the couches of kings. For all this, they were made to know
that they were not to leave the land of the Mayas.
“Not ever?” said Jean with a wrinkled brow.
“Perhaps never,” Johnny said solemnly.
“Johnny, we were mad.”
“You are right. We were quite out of our heads when we came here. But
what’s the fun of living if you can’t have some adventure?”
“Yes, there is joy in it!” exclaimed the girl, springing down from her
perch on the carved rock. “And to-day, since we can’t leave, we will
discover something wonderful in the midst of these ruins.”
They did. Something came of it, too, I assure you.
It was in the midst of an all but impenetrable growth of palms and vines
which, spreading over a crumbling heap of ruins seemed to wish to hide a
secret, that they made the discovery, and having made it, entered upon
one of the strangest and weirdest adventures any of them had ever known.
As they crawled on hands and knees, here forcing their way between the
spreading leaves of a nut palm, there tearing away a wild fig vine, they
came at last upon an opening. Before this opening sagged an old, decayed
door. There was scarcely room to crawl between the heaps of rocks that
blocked the way, but once one was inside he found that he had entered a
damp, dark hallway that, extending far as his electric torch would reach,
suggested mystery and romance.
Johnny was the first to enter. Jean and Roderick followed. There was a
moment of hushed silence as they stood there breathing silently as if
listening for voices that had long been stilled forever.
“I’ll wager the place hasn’t been visited except by bats since the year
one,” said Johnny.
As if to prove that at least part of his prophecy was true, there came a
whirring of wings and one of those great vampire bats, terror to all
living things in Central America, flew by so close that the current of
damp air stirred by his flight lifted their hair.
“The secret corridor,” Johnny said. There was a solemn note of mystery in
his voice. “To what chambers of treasure does it lead? We may yet be the
richest Mayas in all this little hidden kingdom.”
“Yes, and I’d take a broken sixpence for my share, could I but return to
my father’s camp,” said Roderick, disconsolately.
However downcast her brother might be, Jean was still game. “Come on!”
she exclaimed. “We will find the god of the rising sun, the god of the
noonday sun and all the other gods with the gold and jewels that enrich
their chambers. We’ll find the chamber of the ancient princess. What
shall we not find. Come on. C’mon! C’mon!” Seizing her brother by the
arm, she fairly dragged him down the corridor which, to those who came
from the hot dryness of tropical day, seemed to possess the chill
dampness of perpetual night.
On tip-toe, lest perchance they might waken the spirits of other
centuries, they began their march down the wide corridor. Only the
diffident snap-snap of great bats disturbed the silence of the place.
Walking in deep, age-old dust, they made no sound. So, awed into silence,
gripping one another by the arm, they marched on until, having covered
some two hundred feet, they came to a sudden halt before what appeared to
be a solid stone wall. Certainly it was stone, and it looked as solid as
the Rock of Gibraltar.
“Well!” Jean exclaimed.
“The end,” muttered Johnny.
“Now,” said Roderick in a relieved tone, “I hope we may go back to the
sunlight. I don’t like these beastly vampire bats. I’ve been told they
can kill an ox by sucking his blood. They’ve been known to drive the
entire population of a village from their homes. What would you do if one
of the bally rascals made a grab at your throat?”
“Take him by the ear and give a good sound scolding,” said Johnny.
“Hold on a bit,” he said as Roderick started back, “let’s have a look.”
He began flashing his torch from floor to ceiling, from corner to corner
of the dungeon-like place.
“Not an opening,” he sighed. “Not a suggestion of an—wait! How does it
happen that this stone at the end is fully a yard square, while all the
rest of the wall is made up of small rocks?”
Taking a heavy cane which Roderick had insisted upon bringing into the
place, he struck the broad stone a resounding blow. At once the place was
alive with echoes and whirring wings.
“Sounds hollow,” he muttered.
He pressed the end of the stick against the top of the stone and gave it
a shove. To their surprise the stone, which to all appearances was a
door, dropped slowly and noiselessly downward until it formed a sort of
threshold over which they who dared might walk.
“Oh! Ah!” Jean murmured.
As if expecting a million vampires to spring at him from the dark,
Roderick started back.
As soon as she could recover from her surprise Jean set one small foot on
the stone threshold.
“No,” said Johnny, placing a restraining hand upon her shoulder, “let me
go in and look about a little. Not that I wish to be first, but it
might—might not be quite—quite safe. You are a girl. In a way, I’m your
protector.”
“I—I understand,” said the girl as she favored him with a smile that was
altogether new to him.
In spite of all his efforts at self-control, Johnny’s knees trembled a
little as he stepped upon the rock. It was strange to be moving forward
alone into a subterranean chamber which, to all appearances, had not been
visited for centuries. What would he discover there? Was this the secret
hiding place of princes, a temple of worship or a dungeon prison? What
would he discover there; rare old furniture, moulding to decay; gold,
jewels, or only skeletons?
“Probably nothing,” he told himself as he moved forward.
After he had taken three steps he halted for a second. There was
something strange about the rock upon which he stood. It appeared to have
a greenish cast, but being eager to discover the contents of the chamber,
he pressed on without investigating further.
The electric torch which he carried had an adjustment which enabled one
to throw about him a dim light or a bright one. At the present time it
shone but dimly. As he attempted to flash it to full brilliancy the catch
stuck and the lamp continued to shine but dimly.
Still impatient, he pressed forward down this more deeply mysterious
corridor, which appeared somewhat broader and shorter, almost to its end
before he discovered anything of interest. Then of a sudden he found
himself all but upon some object which, sending forth a dull yellow
lustre, appeared to hang in air. Most mysterious of all, from the center
of this there came a tiny but peculiarly brilliant light.
“It can’t be,” he told himself, starting back. “A light burning through
all these centuries! That would be to discover the origin of light
itself. That—”
He broke short off. His hand trembled so he could scarcely hold the
torch; his knees shook violently. The room had suddenly blazed forth with
an intense green light. At the same time there came to his startled ears
a piercing scream.