THE BOYS ARE TRAPPED.
The numbing sense that comes with an overwhelming disaster tied the
tongues of all three boys in this crisis. They stood stupidly gazing at
the chain which formed their only hope of escape. It dangled
tantalizingly just out of reach, even if it would not have meant death
in the white snakes’ coils to have attempted to reach it.
White-faced and despairing, they stood there in their tracks for several
minutes. Was this to be the end? Were they to die here in these unknown
underground passageways? It was a situation to turn to ice-water the
blood of the strongest, most determined man. No wonder that in the face
of this greatest crisis of their lives the three boys were stricken
tongue-tied with horror and apprehension.
It was Frank who spoke at last. His voice assumed a desperate
cheerfulness he was in reality far from feeling.
“Come on, boys,” he cried, “cheer up. While there’s life there’s hope.
As we can’t turn back now the only thing for us to do is to push on as
long as we have strength to do so.”
“I suppose so,” miserably replied Harry, “I wish to goodness I’d never
thrown that rock at the quesal’s eye,” he added in a sort of comic
despair.
Under Frank’s confident manner, however, their spirits rallied a little
and, extinguishing all the candles but one,—that carried by Frank,—they
pushed on after him down the new tunnel that lay in front of them. To
their surprise this took a heavy upward slant, and then abruptly doubled
back toward the direction they had already traversed. This fact kindled
a spark of hope in Frank’s heart which he did not dare to communicate to
the other boys, however, for fear of having later to dash the newly
awakened hopes.
It seemed reasonable to suppose that if the passage led upward it would
at least be likely to bring them out into daylight and fresh air, and
these two things meant much to the boys, who were as much exhausted by
the bad atmosphere and depressing surroundings of the darkness as by
fatigue and the terrible shock they had just undergone.
So Frank, with a stouter heart, plodded steadily along up the path which
still rose steeply in front of them. He looked at his compass and found
that they were now traveling almost due east or in an exactly opposite
direction to that they had taken when they entered the tunnel. A wild
idea flashed across Frank’s mind at this discovery that served to
further cheer him. Might it not be possible that the path led straight
through the mountain? He looked at his watch. It was not yet twelve.
They had then been traveling about six hours. Of the exact speed of
their progress of course he could make no estimate, but he judged that
they had made on an average a little over a mile and a half an hour,
allowing for delays. It was possible, too, that the passage had taken
windings and deviations which in the darkness they had not perceived.
Suddenly something occurred that brightened the lagging spirits of even
Harry and Billy. All three of the boys felt distinctly a cool refreshing
draught of air. At first none of them dared to speak of it, for the same
reason that Frank had not wanted to express his theory that they were
bound through the mountain; but, after a few minutes, the first
refreshing draught became a strong steady breeze.
“Hurray,” broke from the throats of all three, a poor cracked cheer it
was from their exhausted frames—but it was a cheer; and after that they
pressed on with more vigor and cheerfulness. Another ten minutes’ march
and a soft greenish light began to flood the tunnel. Still further on it
grew light enough to extinguish the candles. Their hearts beating with
the hope of speedy escape from the horrors of the underground passage,
the little band pressed briskly forward.
Their spirits were due to receive an abrupt check, however. As they
pushed hurriedly on the passage made an abrupt turn and they saw at once
from whence the light that had gladdened their hearts had proceeded. It
streamed down from the opening of an abandoned shaft that led up about
thirty feet to a round top fringed with hanging creepers and tropical
growth. The circular top of the shaft revealed to the boys’ eyes a round
strip of blue sky.
And that was the bitter end of their high hopes of escape from the
tunnel.
With fresh despair lying heavy on them the boys examined the walls of
the shaft to see if there were not some steps cut there or mounting
rounds driven by those who must once have used it, but in whatever
manner the ancient Toltecs got in and out of their passage from whatever
sort of territory lay at the top of the shaft, they had left no trace of
it. The walls were as smooth as a sheet of paper.
“Well,” exclaimed Frank, after the examination was concluded, “we have
been in some tight places; but I don’t think we were ever in a neater
fix than this seems to be.”
“There’s one chance,” cried Harry, “and only one—it’s just possible that
there may be people, civilized people——”
“Or Indians,” put in Billy, “what difference does it make who or what
they are——”
“As I was about to say,” went on Harry, not noticing the half hysterical
interruption of the overwrought boy, “it’s just possible that if there
is anyone in the neighborhood of the top of this shaft that we might be
able to attract their attention by shouting.”
“A good idea, Harry,” replied Frank. It was at once put into execution.
The boys shouted at the pitch of their tired voices for a good hour and
then desisted from sheer inability to produce another sound. There was
no result. Once a bird hopped onto a creeper at the mouth of the shaft
and peeped inquisitively down, but that was the only fruit of their
efforts. The boys looked blankly at each other. They were three as brave
lads as ever stood together facing hardship and adventure, but who shall
blame Billy Barnes if tears did well up in his eyes and topple over, and
trickle down his cheeks as, his head in his hands, he sank despairingly
on the rock floor at the bottom of the shaft?
The bright blue sky above, the cheerful green of the waving creepers and
plants that fringed the mouth of their prison all combined to make their
disappointment harder to bear. Each boy felt that if death was to come
it would be easier almost to face it in the dark tunnel they had left
behind them than here, almost within grasp of life and all they held
most dear.
“We’d better take an inventory,” remarked the practical Frank at length,
“and see just how long we can last out. When we reach the end we’ve got
one desperate chance——”
His listeners looked up from their despairing attitudes inquiringly.
“We can retrace our steps and try to leap the chasm.”
“A twelve foot jump at least,” exclaimed Harry.
“You’ve done better than that at home many times,” rejoined Frank
bravely, “and so have I, and so has Billy, I’ll bet.”
“It’s one thing to do a broad jump at school on the flat ground and
another to try it over a chasm full of white serpents,” moaned Harry.
The inventory taken, the boys found that they had the following articles
on which to sustain life till they were rescued or till death claimed
them—the latter seeming the inevitable contingency.
Three canteens of water—minus about a pint each drunk on the journey.
Four packages each of soup tablets and erbe wurst.
A pocketful apiece of pilot bread.
And that was all. To make matters worse the soup tablets needed water to
make them edible and although the boys had an aluminum saucepan with
them they realized that in a pinch it is more easy to subsist without
food than without water. Their supply of water—the chief
consideration—was lamentably small for the situation.
“Maybe we could eat the tablets dry and let them dissolve in our
mouths,” suggested Billy, “I’m so ravenously hungry that I’ve got to eat
something.”
The idea was hailed as a good one and the boys made a meal at about 2.30
that afternoon off dry soup tablets—two apiece—and one-half round each
of their precious pilot bread.
“Tastes like soap more than soup to me,” remarked Billy with a wry face,
and then suddenly stopped short, the boy had forgotten for a moment that
the “soap” might stand between them and starvation. But the soapy
qualities of the tablets were not their worst property. The enterprising
manufacturers who made them had seasoned them liberally with salt and
pepper, also presumably in compressed form, with the result that half an
hour after their meal had concluded the boys were seized with furious
pangs of thirst.
They held out as long as they could, knowing the importance of
husbanding their water supply, but at last their sufferings became so
unbearable that Billy seized his canteen with the remark:
“If I am to die I’m not going to deny myself a drink of water;” and
drained a quarter of its contents at one gulp almost. Frank and Harry
both possessed plenty of self-control, but the sight of Billy’s
assuagement of his thirst was more than they could bear, and
simultaneously each of them seized his canteen and throwing back his
head let the grateful stream trickle down their parched throats.
“I could hear it sizzle,” exclaimed Harry, putting his canteen aside
with a sigh of satisfaction.
That night the boys bravely fought off all temptation to touch any more
of their precious water, but when the sun got up and the parching heat
of the day penetrated even into the shaft they could bear it no longer.
They took their canteens and drank and when they set them down from
their lips they contained only a few drops each. As for food they still
had some left, but they scarcely dared to eat it fearing to increase the
maddening torture of thirst. As the day wore on they sat round the
bottom of the shaft in a sort of hopeless apathy.
Their tongues were swollen till they could hardly speak, their eyes were
caked with dust and red-rimmed, their lips blackened and parched by
their sufferings. They were indeed a different looking group to the trim
Chester Exploration Expedition that had set out so light-heartedly the
day before. From time to time they fell into a sleep of sheer exhaustion
from which they awakened unrefreshed. Strange visions of cool flashing
brooks, green orchards and crystal lakes shot through their minds. The
first stages of the delirium that precedes death by hunger and thirst
were upon them and they realized it. Long before night came and the
coolness relieved their sufferings to a slight extent they had emptied
the last drops of water in their canteens. They had even resorted to the
expedient of staggering back along the tunnel, to where the walls began
to grow damp, and licking off the grateful moisture with their tongues.
Infinitesimal as the relief was, still it furnished some alleviation of
their sufferings.
At daybreak the next day, Harry and Billy were comatose. They lay with
their eyes closed at the bottom of the shaft uncaring of their fate.
This is the merciful anodyne that nature sometimes brings to those she
dooms to die in the cruelest way imaginable. Frank alone held out
against the deadly torpor he felt creeping over him.
“While there’s life there’s hope,” he kept whispering through his
cracked lips, but he knew that in his heart hope had died and there was
nothing to wait for but death.
An idea suddenly struck him. Perhaps some day, long after they were
dead, somebody would stumble on them. He would leave a record of their
names and how they met their fate. Feverishly, with half palsied hands,
he searched through his pockets for a pencil and a scrap of paper. He
drew out a handful of odds and ends from his pocket, and sorted through
them for a stub of pencil. As he did so his waterproof matchbox fell
from the collection and rolled slowly to his feet. He gazed at it
stupidly. The idea flashed into his mind, that they would give a lot of
fire now for water and here was the means of fire so carefully protected
against the element that would give them life. He laughed mirthlessly,
but suddenly staggered to his feet, a last hope animating him—
“Fire!”
Across the boy’s reeling brain there shot an idea, as he stared at the
matchbox.
If a column of smoke were seen from the shaft mouth it might bring aid.
What a fool he was not to have thought of that before. Hastily he tore
his shirt into strips and with his blackened, blood-stained hands
scraped together some litter that had fallen from the brush above into
the shaft.
With trembling hands he lighted it. It caught and blazed brightly up,
too brightly in fact. Frank saw that there would have to be more smoke,
if his beacon was to be visible. He crawled over to where Harry and
Billy lay and ripped their shirts from their backs. The two boys looked
at him stupidly, but neither spoke—they were too far gone for that.
As Frank piled the heavy material he had acquired on the blaze, a column
of thick blue smoke rolled heavenward out of the shaft mouth. It was
their last chance. Nerved by this new kindled hope, Frank gazed at the
fire with his rapidly, dimming eyes till it died out into a pile of gray
ashes.
Would there be an answer?
How long he sat there Frank never knew. It was long after the ashes had
grown cold, however. With a last flicker of consciousness he looked at
his watch. Four o’clock. What were they doing at home in New York, what
were they thinking at the hacienda? he wondered vaguely.
It was hard to die like this, with the blue sky so near. He gazed up at
the shaft mouth as if to take a last farewell of the outer world.
The next minute the exhausted boy leaped to his feet and instantly fell
back swooning with a loud cry of joy. Their signal had been seen.
Peering over the top of the shaft, was a wild, brown face fringed with
long matted hair and beard, but the eyes were kindly and Frank had read
their message of rescue.