A STRANGE ADVENTURE.
Early the next day the explorers, boys and adults, resumed their
investigation of the Lost City. The professor estimated that it would
take some time before they had completed their work and collected
relics, records and films of the various features of absorbing
scientific interest to be found there.
Joe and Nat struck out in one direction, while the Professor, Ding-dong
and Mr. Tubbs assumed another line of investigation. The path taken by
the two boys led them down one of the crumbling streets to the lake
front of the Lost City. On the way they entered several of the houses
and collected some small relics and Joe, who had some talent that way,
busied himself in making rough sketches of the buildings they examined.
At last, thoroughly tired out, the two lads sat themselves down on a
raised pile of carefully fitted stones in the courtyard of a splendid
white building with a pyramid-like cupola. They had brought some
sandwiches and a flask of water with them and made a light meal while
they rested.
“Seems like a sort of sacrilege to be eating corned beef sandwiches in
what may have been a temple,” said Nat as he ate.
Joe laughed.
“From what we know of the folks that used to live here they used to
make corned beef out of anyone they didn’t like, so don’t worry about
that end of it, old fellow.”
“That’s so,” agreed Nat. “I wonder, for instance, if this business
we’re sitting on at this moment isn’t an old altar of some kind. Looks
as if it might have been.”
“It does that,” agreed Joe, “and see here, Nat, here’s a metal ring
right here in this slab of stone. I wonder if they used to tie their
poor victims to it?”
He indicated a big ring of dull, greenish metal which they had not
noticed before. It was countersunk in one of the slabs of stone that
formed the top of the altar.
Nat examined it.
“I guess more likely it was used to raise this stone,” he said. “Maybe
the altar is hollow inside and contains relics of some sort.”
“Cracky! I’d like to raise it,” declared Joe; but, although he tugged
and pulled till his ruddy face was redder than usual, Joe could make no
impression on the stone.
“Let me try,” suggested Nat.
With what idea, he could not exactly say, the boy gave the ring a
gentle twisting motion instead of tugging at it. Then an astonishing
thing happened. The entire top of the altar tipped downward and the
boys were shot, scrambling and struggling, into the interior of the
altar, if such it had been. Before they knew just what had occurred
they found themselves in total darkness, for, having tipped them off,
the stone had swung into place again.
A thrill of fear crept icily through Nat’s veins as he realized that
they were prisoners. But he put all the heart he could into his reply
when Joe in a frightened voice gasped out:
“What on earth happened, Nat?”
“Why, just this,” was the reply. “That altar top was counterbalanced.
Our weight was on one end of it. In some way, when I twisted that ring,
a spring or catch must have been loosened and—and—we’re in the interior
of the altar.”
“Can we get out again, do you think?”
“That’s just what we’ve got to find out, and quickly, too, Joe,” was
the response. “Got any matches?”
“Yes; luckily I brought some. I’ve got a pocket lantern here, too, with
a candle in it. Shall I light up?”
“Yes, do so as soon as you can,” rejoined Nat.
The next minute the interior of the altar was illumined by a yellow
light. But so perfectly had the swinging top of the altar been fitted
that not a crevice appeared and as for any lever or handle by which it
might have been opened, none was revealed by the light.
But it was some minutes before the boys found out this fact. When they
did, however, it came with a sense of stunning bitterness. If they
could not find a means of egress from the altar, they were, in all
human probability, doomed to die in that gloomy prison.
Although they both realized their situation, neither lad voiced his
fears. There still remained one end of the altar to be examined, and
Nat lost no time in proceeding to investigate the hitherto neglected
portion of their prison. But its masonry appeared to be as solidly
constructed as was the case in every other part of the altar. Nat,
almost in despair, was turning away when Joe, who had been at his side,
gave a sudden cry.
“Nat! Nat! There’s a stone loose here. I can move it with my foot. When
I press down on it—Great-jumping-horned-toads!”
Joe’s exclamation was caused by the fact that as he pressed down on the
loose stone a small door opened out before them in the end of the
altar. It was impossible to say, however, whither it led, as beyond lay
total darkness.
“What do you say, shall we try it?” asked Joe in a rather tremulous
voice, for the darkness looked singularly mysterious and forbidding.
“We’ve _got_ to try it,” said Nat gloomily. “It’s our only alternative,
unless we want to stay here and starve to death.”
Joe had to agree that this was a true statement of the facts of the
case, and not without quickened pulses the two lads made the plunge
into the darkness beyond the door. The portal was square and so low
that they had to bend to get through it. The rays of Joe’s
candle-lantern showed the two youths that they were in a low-roofed
passage, or tunnel, just wide enough for them to proceed in single file.
“You go first,” said Joe in a rather quivery tone, which showed better
than anything else that the adventure was having its effect upon him,
the usually unperturbed.
“All right, give me the lantern.”
“I wonder where this passage can lead to?”
“Haven’t the least idea. I think we are going south, but I’m not sure.”
“I’m all twisted up, too. I wish we’d left that old ring alone.”
“Maybe I don’t, too. If we ever get out of this place, I’ll leave all
such devices severely to themselves in future.”
“Have you any idea of the purpose of this passage?”
“Not I. Maybe it was used as a means of escape. In that case——”
“In that case we will get out to daylight again,” Joe concluded.
“On the other hand, it may have been designed as a means of executing
their criminals or enemies. I’ve heard of such things.”
Joe fairly shuddered.
“Oh, talk of something pleasant,” he said, with a groan.
No more was said for a time. The circumstances didn’t make the boys
feel much inclined for conversation.
All at once they emerged into a vaulted chamber, seemingly cut out of
the living rock. At the top of its arched roof was set a huge crystal,
very like the one they had seen in the “telescope tower,” only much
larger. Through this lens light was streaming into the place, the walls
of which were painted and carved with all manner of strange-looking
inscriptions and designs. Nat was so intent on gazing at these that he
did not look as carefully where he was going as he had in his progress
down the passage.
Suddenly his feet slipped from under him and he found himself falling
downward. Joe uttered a cry as he saw his comrade vanish. He leaped
forward, checking himself just in time to avoid sharing Nat’s plight.
He found himself on the brink of a sort of well about ten feet deep. At
the bottom of this was Nat. Joe uttered a cry of relief as Nat hailed
him and assured him that, by a miracle, he was not hurt.
“But how are you going to get out of there?” demanded Joe the next
instant.
How, indeed? The question certainly was a poser. The walls of the well
were as smooth as glass almost and Joe noticed a peculiar feature. From
its “curb” radiated long lines extending over the floor of the rocky
chamber. These lines were cut in the rock and reminded Joe of lines he
had seen cut on a sun dial.
But he gave little thought to this at the moment. His mind was centered
on finding a means to get Nat out of his predicament. But, though he
thought and thought, no solution of the problem occurred to him.
Joe was still wrapped in thought at the edge of the well when he felt a
sudden blast of fearful heat on his back. He looked hastily round. His
first thought was that some hidden fire must suddenly have burst into
life behind him.
But, no, what he had felt had been the rays of the sun pouring through
the crystal at the top of the cavern and striking down with
tremendously magnified force upon him.
“Phew! That felt like an oven!” exclaimed Joe, moving away.
It was a moment later that he observed something that filled him with a
vague sense of alarm, which swiftly crystallized into a sharp, livid
pang of fear.
The sun was now striking down into the well. Like a thunderbolt the
purpose of the pit and the reason of the crystal lens burst upon Joe.
The ancient dwellers of the Lost City had been Sun Worshippers. This
chamber was a sacrificial one and the priests of the vanished race had
offered up their victims’ lives by literally dedicating them to the Sun
gods. As this alarming truth broke upon Joe a faint cry came from Nat,
down in the pit.
“Joe, for gracious sake, do something to get me out of here! The sun is
striking down into the pit. It is fearfully hot. If you don’t get me
out soon I’ll be baked alive.”
Poor Joe cast his eyes about him despairingly. The sun was streaming
through the lens at an angle now. What would happen when its direct
rays poured down into the narrow well he could not bear to think.