THE MIDST OF THE ENEMY.
Harry and I stood gazing at each other blankly in the semidarkness of
the cavern.
"But it isn't possible," I objected finally to my own thoughts. "She
would have cried out and we would have heard her. The spear may have
been there before."
Then I raised my voice, calling her name many times at the top of my
lungs. There was no answer.
"They've got her," said Harry, "and that's all there is to it. The
cursed brutes crept up on her in the dark--much chance she had of
crying out when they got their hands on her. I know it. Why did we
leave her?"
"Where did you find the spear?" I asked.
Harry pointed toward the wall, away from the stream.
"On the ground?"
"Yes."
"Is there an exit from the cavern on that side?"
"I don't know."
"Well, that's our only chance. Come on!"
We found the exit, and another, and a third. Which to take? They were
very similar to one another, except that the one in the middle sloped
upward at a gentle incline, while the others were level.
"One is as good as another," I observed, and entered the one on the
left.
Once started, we advanced with a rush. The passage was straight and
narrow, clear of obstruction, and we kept at a steady run.
"They may have an hour's start of us," came Harry's voice at my side.
"Or five minutes," I returned. "We have no way of knowing. But I'm
afraid we're on the wrong trail."
Still as I had said, one chance was as good as another, and we did not
slacken our pace. The passage went straight forward, without a bend.
The roof was low, just allowing us to pass without stooping, and the
walls were rough and rugged.
It was not long before we found that we had taken the wrong chance,
having covered, I think, some two or three miles when a wall loomed up
directly in our path.
"At last, a turn!" panted Harry.
But it was not a turn. It was the end of the passage. We had been
following a blind alley.
Harry let out a string of oaths, and I seconded him. Twenty minutes
wasted, and another twenty to return!
There was nothing else for it. We shouldered our spears and started to
retrace our steps.
"No use running now," I declared. "We can't keep it up forever, and we
may as well save our strength. We'll never catch up with 'em, but we
may find 'em."
Harry, striding ahead two or three paces in front, did not answer.
Finally we reached the cavern from which we had started.
"And now what?" asked Harry in a tone of the most utter dejection.
I pointed to the exit in the middle. "That! We should have taken it
in the first place. On the raft we probably descended altogether
something like five hundred feet from the level where we
started--possibly twice that distance. And this passage which slopes
upward will probably take us back."
"At least, it's as good as the other," Harry agreed; and we entered it.
We had not proceeded far before we found ourselves in difficulties.
The gentle slope became a steep incline. Great rocks loomed up in our
path.
In spots the passage was so narrow that two men could hardly have
walked abreast through it, and its walls were rough and irregular, with
sharp points projecting unexpectedly into our very faces.
Still we went forward and upward, scrambling over, under, round,
between. At one point, when Harry was a few yards in front of me, he
suddenly disappeared from sight as though swallowed by the mountain.
Rushing forward, I saw him scrambling to his feet at the bottom of a
chasm some ten feet below. Luckily he had escaped serious injury, and
climbed up on the other side, while I leaped across--a distance of
about six feet.
"They could never have brought her through this," he declared, rubbing
a bruised knee.
"Do you want to go back?" I asked.
But he said that would be useless, and I agreed with him. So we
struggled onward, painfully and laboriously. The sharp corners of the
rocks cut our feet and hands, and I had an ugly bruise on my left
shoulder, besides many lesser ones. Harry's injured knee caused him to
limp and thus further retarded our progress.
At times the passage broadened out until the wall on either side was
barely visible, only to narrow down again till it was scarcely more
than a crevice between the giant boulders. The variation of the
incline was no less, being at times very nearly level, and at others
mounting upward at an angle whose ascent was all but impossible.
Somehow we crawled up, like flies on a wall.
When we came to a stream of water rushing directly across our path at
the foot of a towering rock Harry gave a cry of joy and ran forward. I
had not known until then how badly his knee was hurt, and when I came
up to where he was bathing it in the stream and saw how black and
swollen it was, I insisted that he give it a rest. But he absolutely
refused, and after we had quenched our thirst and gotten an easy breath
or two we struggled to our feet and on.
After another hour of scrambling and failing and hanging on by our
finger nails, the way began to be easier. We came to level, clear
stretches with only an occasional boulder or ravine, and the rock
became less cruel to our bleeding feet. The relief came almost too
late, for by that time every movement was painful, and we made but slow
progress.
Soon we faced another difficulty when we came to a point where a split
in the passage showed a lane on either side. One led straight ahead;
the other branched off to the right. They were very similar, but
somehow the one on the right looked more promising to us, and we took
it.
We had followed this but a short distance when it broadened out to such
an extent that the walls on either side could be seen but dimly. It
still sloped upward, but at a very slight angle, and we had little
difficulty in making our way. Another half-hour and it narrowed down
again to a mere lane.
We were proceeding at a fairly rapid gait, keeping our eyes strained
ahead, when there appeared an opening in the right wall at a distance
of a hundred feet or so. Not having seen or heard anything to
recommend caution, we advanced without slackening our pace until we had
reached it.
I said aloud to Harry, "Probably a cross-passage," and then jerked him
back quickly against the opposite wall as I saw the real nature of the
opening.
It led to a small room, with a low ceiling and rough walls, dark as the
passage in which we stood, for it contained no light.
We could see its interior dimly, but well enough to discover the form
of an Inca standing just within the doorway. His back was toward us,
and he appeared to be fastening something to the ceiling with strips of
hide.
It was evident that we had not been seen, and I started to move on,
grasping Harry's arm. It was then that I became aware of the fact that
the wall leading away in front of us--that is, the one on the
right--was marked as far as the eye could reach with a succession of
similar openings.
They were quite close together; from where we stood I could see thirty
or forty of them. I guessed that they, too, led to rooms similar to
the one in front of us, probably likewise occupied; but it was
necessary to go on in spite of the danger, and I pulled again at
Harry's arm.
Then, seeing by his face that something had happened, I turned my eyes
again on the Inca in the room. He had turned about, squarely facing
us. As we stood motionless he took a hasty step forward; we had been
discovered.
There was but one thing to do, and we didn't hesitate about doing it.
We leaped forward together, crossing the intervening space in a single
bound, and bore the Inca to the floor under us.
My fingers were round his throat, Harry sat on him. In a trice we had
him securely bound and gagged, using some strips of hide which we found
suspended from the ceiling.
"By gad!" exclaimed Harry in a whisper. "Look at him! He's a woman!"
It was quite evident--disgustingly so. Her eyes, dull and sunken,
appeared as two large, black holes set back in her skull. Her hair,
matted about her forehead and shoulders, was thick and coarse, and
blacker than night. Her body was innocent of any attempt at covering.
Altogether, not a very pleasant sight; and we bundled her into a corner
and proceeded to look round the room, being careful to remain out of
the range of view from the corridor as far as possible.
The room was not luxuriously furnished. There were two seats of stone,
and a couch of the same material covered with thick hides. In one
corner was a pile of copper vessels; in another two or three of stone,
rudely carved. Some torn hides lay in a heap near the center of the
room. From the ceiling were suspended other hides and some strips of
dried fish.
Some of the latter we cut down with the points of our spears and
retired with it to a corner.
"Ought we to ask our hostess to join us?" Harry grinned.
"This tastes good, after the other," I remarked.
Hungry as we were, we made sad havoc with the lady's pantry. Then we
found some water in a basin in the corner and drank--not without
misgivings. But we were too thirsty to be particular.
Then Harry became impatient to go on, and though I had no liking for
the appearance of that long row of open doorways, I did not demur.
Taking up our spears, we stepped out into the corridor and turned to
the right.
We found ourselves running a gantlet wherein discovery seemed certain.
The right wall was one unbroken series of open doorways, and in each of
the rooms, whose interiors we could plainly see, were one or more of
the Inca Women; and sometimes children rolled about on the stony floor.
In one of them a man stood; I could have sworn that he was gazing
straight at us, and I gathered myself together for a spring; but he
made no movement of any kind and we passed swiftly by.
Once a little black ball of flesh--a boy it was, perhaps five or six
years old--tumbled out into the corridor under our very feet. We
strode over him and went swiftly on.
We had passed about a hundred of the open doorways, and were beginning
to entertain the hope that we might, after all, get through without
being discovered, when Harry suddenly stopped short, pulling at my arm.
At the same instant I saw, far down the corridor, a crowd of black
forms moving toward us.
Even at that distance something about their appearance and gait told us
that they were not women. Their number was so great that as they
advanced they filled the passage from wall to wall.
There was but one way to escape certain discovery; and distasteful as
it was, we did not hesitate to employ it. In a glance I saw that we
were directly opposite an open doorway; with a whispered word to Harry
I sprang across the corridor and within the room. He followed.
Inside were a woman and two children. As we entered they looked up,
startled, and stood gazing at us in terror. For an instant we held
back, but there was nothing else for it; and in another minute we had
overpowered and bound and gagged them and carried them to a corner.
The children were ugly little devils and the woman very little above a
brute; still we handled them as tenderly as possible. Then we crouched
against the wall where we could not be seen from the corridor, and
waited.
Soon the patter of many footsteps reached our ears. They passed;
others came, and still others. For many minutes the sound continued
steadily, unbroken, while we sat huddled up against the wall, scarcely
daring to breathe.
Immediately in front of me lay the forms of the woman and the children;
I could see their dull eyes, unblinking, looking up at me in abject
terror. Still the patter of footsteps sounded from without, with now
and then an interval of quiet.
Struck by a sudden thought, I signaled to Harry; and when he had moved
further back into his corner I sprang across the room in one bound to
his side. A word or two of whispering, and he nodded to show that he
understood. We crouched together flat against the wall.
My thought had come just in time, for scarcely another minute had
passed when there suddenly appeared in the doorway the form of an Inca.
He moved a step inside, and I saw that there was another behind him. I
had not counted on two of them! In the arms of each was a great copper
vessel, evidently very heavy, for their effort was apparent as they
stooped to place the vessels on the ground just within the doorway.
As they straightened up and saw that the room before them was empty,
their faces filled with surprise. At the same moment a movement came
from the woman in the corner; the two men glanced at them with a start
of wonder; and as I had foreseen, they ran across and bent over the
prostrate forms.
The next instant they, too, were prone on the floor, with Harry and me
on top of them. They did not succumb without a struggle, and the one I
had chosen proved nearly too much for me.
The great muscles of his chest and legs strained under me with a power
that made me doubtful for a moment of the outcome; but the Incas
themselves had taught us how to conquer a man when you attack him from
behind, and I grasped his throat with all the strength there was in my
fingers.
With a desperate effort he got to his knees and grasped my wrists in
his powerful black hands and tore my own grip loose. He was half-way
to his feet, and far more powerful than I; I changed my tactics.
Wrenching myself loose, I fell back a step; then, as he twisted round
to get at me, I lunged forward and let him have my fist squarely
between the eyes.
The blow nearly broke my hand, but he dropped to the floor. The next
instant I was joined by Harry, who had overcome the other Inca with
little difficulty, and in a trice we had them both bound and gagged
along with the remainder of the family in the corner.
Owing to my strategy in withholding our attack until the Incas had got
well within the room and to one side, we had not been seen by those
constantly passing up and down in the corridor without; at least, none
of them had entered. We seemed by this stroke to have assured our
safety so long as we remained in the room.
But it was still necessary to remain against the wall, for the soft
patter of footsteps could still be heard in the corridor.
They now came at irregular intervals, and there were not many of them.
Otherwise the silence was unbroken.
"What does it all mean?" Harry whispered.
"The Incas are coming home to their women," I guessed. "Though, after
seeing the women, it is little wonder if they spend most of their time
away from them. He is welcome to his repose in the bosom of his
family."
There passed an uneventful hour. Long before it ended the sound of
footsteps had entirely ceased; but we thought it best to take no
chances, and waited for the last minute our impatience would allow us.
Then, uncomfortable and stiff from the long period of immobility and
silence, we rose to our feet and made ready to start.
Harry was for appropriating some of the strips of dried fish we saw
suspended from the ceiling, but I objected that our danger lay in any
direction other than that of hunger, and we set out with only our
spears.
The corridor was deserted. One quick glance in either direction
assured us of that; then we turned to the right and set out at a rapid
pace, down the long passage past a succession of rooms exactly similar
to the one we had just left--scores, hundreds of them.
Each one was occupied by from one to ten of the Incas lying on the
couch which each contained, or stretched on hides on the floor. No one
was stirring. Everywhere was silence save the patter of our own feet,
which we let fall as noiselessly as possible.
"Will it never end?" whispered Harry at length, after we had traversed
upward of a mile without any sign of a cross-passage or a termination.
"Forward, and silence!" I breathed for a reply.
The end--at least, of the silence--came sooner than we had expected.
Hardly were the last words out of my mouth when a whirring noise
sounded behind us. We glanced over our shoulders as we ran, and at the
same instant an Inca spear flew by not two inches from my head and
struck the ground in front.
Not a hundred feet to the rear we saw a group of Incas rushing along
the passage toward us. Harry wheeled about, raising his spear, but I
grasped him by the arm, crying, "Run; it's our only chance!" The next
moment we were leaping forward side by side down the passage.
It would have fared ill with any who appeared to block our way in that
mad dash; but it remained clear. The corridor led straight ahead, with
never a turn. We were running as we had never run before; the black
walls flashed past us an indistinguishable blur, and the open doorways
were blended into one.
Glancing back over my shoulder, I saw that the small group of Incas was
no longer small. Away to the rear the corridor was filled with rushing
black forms. But I saw plainly that we were gaining on them; the
distance that separated us was twice as great as when we had first
started to run.
"How about it?" I panted. "Can you hold out?"
"If it weren't for this knee," Harry returned between breaths and
through clenched teeth. "But--I'm with you." He was limping painfully,
and I slackened my pace a little, but he urged me forward with an oath,
and himself sprang to the front. His knee must have been causing him
the keenest agony; his face was white as death.
Then I uttered a cry of joy as I saw a bend in the passage ahead. We
reached it, and wheeled to the right. There was solid wall on either
side; the series of doors was ended.
"We'll shake 'em off now," I panted.
Harry nodded.
A short distance ahead we came to another cross-passage, and turned to
the left. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw that our pursuers had not
yet reached the first turn. Harry kept in the lead, and was giving me
all I could do to keep up with him.
We found ourselves now in a veritable maze of lanes and cross-passages,
and we turned to one side or the other at every opportunity. At length
I grasped Harry by the arm and stopped him. We stood for two full
minutes listening intently. There was absolutely no sound of any kind.
"Thank Heaven!" Harry breathed, and would have fallen to the ground if
I had not supported him.
We started out then in search of water, moving slowly and cautiously.
But we found none, and soon Harry declared that he could go no further.
We sat down with our backs against the wall of the passage, still
breathing heavily and all but exhausted.
In that darkness and silence the minutes passed into hours. We talked
but little, and then only in whispers. Finally Harry fell into a
restless sleep, if it may be called that, and several times I dozed off
and was awakened by my head nodding against the stone wall.
At length, finding Harry awake, I urged him to his feet. His knee
barely supported his weight, but he gritted his teeth and told me to
lead on.
"We can wait--" I began; but he broke in savagely:
"No! I want to find her, that's all--and end it. Just one more
chance!"
We searched for an hour before we found the stream of water we sought.
After Harry had bathed his knee and drunk his fill he felt more fit,
and we pushed on more rapidly, but still quite at random.
We turned first one way, then another, in the never-ending labyrinth,
always in darkness and silence. We seemed to get nowhere; and I for
one was about to give up the disheartening task when suddenly a sound
smote our ears that caused us first to start violently, then stop and
gaze at each other in comprehension and eager surprise.
"The bell!" cried Harry. "They are being summoned to the great cavern!"
It was the same sound we had heard twice before; a sound as of a great,
deep-toned bell ringing sonorously throughout the passages and caverns
with a roar that was deafening. And it seemed to be close--quite close.
"It came from the left," said Harry; but I disagreed with him and was
so sure of myself that we started off to the right. The echoes of the
bell were still floating from wall to wall as we went rapidly forward.
I do not know what we expected to find, and the Lord knows what we
intended to do after we found it.
A short distance ahead we came to another passage, crossing at right
angles, broad and straight, and somehow familiar. As with one impulse
we took it, turning to the left, and then flattened ourselves back
against the wall as we saw a group of Incas passing at its farther end,
some two hundred yards away.
There we stood, motionless and scarcely breathing, while group after
group of the savages passed in the corridor ahead. Their number
swelled to a continuous stream, which in turn gradually became thinner
and thinner until only a few stragglers were seen trotting behind.
Finally they, too, ceased to appear; the corridor was deserted.
We waited a while longer, then as no more appeared we started forward
and soon had reached the corridor down which they had passed. We
followed in the direction they had taken, turning to the right.
We had no sooner turned than we saw that which caused us to glance
quickly at each other and hasten our step, while I smothered the
ejaculation that rose to my lips. The corridor in which we now found
ourselves stretched straight ahead for a distance, then turned to one
side; and the corner thus formed was flooded with a brilliant blaze of
light!
There was no longer any doubt of it: we were on our way to the great
cavern. For a moment I hesitated, asking myself for what purpose we
hastened on thus into the very arms of our enemies; then, propelled by
instinct or premonition--I know not what--I took a firmer grasp on my
spear and followed Harry without word, throwing caution to the winds.
Yet we avoided foolhardiness, for as we approached the last turn we
proceeded slowly, keeping an eye on the rear. But all the Incas
appeared to have assembled within, for the corridor remained deserted.
We crept silently to the corner, avoiding the circle of light as far as
possible, and, crouching side by side on the rock, looked out together
on a scene none the less striking because we had seen it twice before.
It was the great cavern. We saw it from a different viewpoint than
before; the alcove which held the golden throne was far off to our
left, nearly half-way round the vast circumference. On the throne was
seated the king, surrounded by guards and attendants.
As before, the stone seats which surrounded the amphitheater on every
side were filled with the Incas, crouching motionless and silent. The
flames in the massive urns mounted in steady tongues, casting their
blinding glare in every direction.
All this I saw in a flash, when suddenly Harry's fingers sank into the
flesh of my arm with such force that I all but cried out in actual
pain. And then, glancing at him and following the direction of his
gaze, I saw Desiree.
She was standing on the top of the lofty column in the center of the
lake.
Her white body, uncovered, was outlined sharply against the black
background of the cavern above.