FINDING THE TUNNEL
In silence, broken only by the noise of the motor, did the gold-seekers
approach the temple. As they neared it they could see its vast
proportions, and they noted that it was made of some white stone,
something like marble. Then, too, as they drew closer, they could
see the desolate ruin into which it had fallen.
"Looks as if a dynamite explosion had knocked it all apart,"
observed Ned.
"It certainly does," agreed Mr. Damon.
"Maybe Cortez, or some of those early explorers, blew it up with
gunpowder after fighting the Aztecs, or whatever the natives were
called in those days," suggested Tom.
"Bless my bookcase! You don't mean to say you think this temple goes
back to those early days," spoke Mr. Damon.
"Yes, and probably farther," declared Tom. "It must be very ancient,
and the whole country about here is desolate. Why, the way the woods
have grown up everywhere but on this plain shows that it must be
three or four hundred years ago. There must have been a city around
the temple, probably Poltec, and yet there isn't a trace of it that
we have seen as we came along. Oh, yes, this is very ancient."
"It will be jolly fun to explore it," decided Ned. "I wish it wasn't
so near night."
"We can't do much now," decided Tom. "It will be too dark, and I
don't altogether fancy going in those old ruins except by daylight."
"Do you think any of those old Aztec priests, with their knifes of
glass, will sacrifice you on a stone altar?" asked Ned, with a
laugh.
"No, but there might be wild beasts in there," went on the young
inventor, "and I'm sure there are any number of bats. There must be
lots of nooks and corners in there where a whole army could hide.
It's an immense place."
The ruined temple certainly was large in extent, and in its glory
must have been a wonderful place. The balloon came nearer, and then
Tom let it sink to rest on the sand not far from the ancient ruin.
Out he leaped, followed by his friends, and for a moment they stood
in silent contemplation of the vast temple. Then as the last rays of
the setting sun turned the white stones to gold, Tom exclaimed:
"A good omen! I'm sure the city of gold must be near here, and in
the morning we'll begin our search for the secret tunnel that leads
to it."
"That's the stuff!" cried Ned enthusiastically.
An instant later it seemed to get dark very suddenly, as it does in
the tropics, and almost with the first shadows of night there came a
strange sound from the ruined temple.
It was a low moaning, rumbling sound, like a mighty wind, afar off,
and it sent a cold shiver down the spines of all in the little
party.
"Good land a' massy! What am dat?" moaned Eradicate, as he darted
back toward the balloon.
"Bless my looking glass!" cried Mr. Damon.
A second later the noise suddenly increased, and something black,
accompanied by a noise of rapidly beating wings rushed from one of
the immense doorways.
"Bats!" cried Tom. "Thousands of bats! I'm glad we didn't go in
after dark!" And bats they were, that had made the noise as they
rushed out on their nightly flight.
"Ugh!" shuddered Mr. Damon. "I detest the creatures! Let's get under
cover."
"Yes," agreed Tom, "we'll have supper, turn in, and be up early to
look for the tunnel. We're here at last. I'll dream of gold to-night."
Eradicate soon had a meal in preparation, though he stopped every
now and then to peer out at the bats, that still came in unbroken
flight from the old temple. Truly there must have been many
thousands of them.
Whether Tom dreamed of gold that night he did not say, but he was
the first one up in the morning, and Ned saw him hurrying over the
sands toward the temple.
"Hold on, Tom!" his chum called as he hastened to dress. "Where you
going?"
"To have a hunt for that tunnel before breakfast. I don't want to
lose any time. No telling when Delazes and his crowd may be after
us. And the Fogers, too, may strike our trail. Come on, we'll get
busy."
"Where do you think the tunnel will be?" asked Ned, when he had
caught up to Tom.
"Well, according to all that Mr. Illingway could tell us, it was
somewhere near this temple. We'll make a circle of it, and if we
don't come across it then we'll make another, and so on, increasing
the size of the circles each time, until we find what we're looking
for."
"Let's have a look inside the temple first," suggested Ned. "It must
have been a magnificent place when it was new, and with the
processions of people and priests in their golden robes."
"You ought to have been an Aztec," suggested Tom, as he headed for
one of the big doorways.
They found the interior of the temple almost as badly in ruins as
was the outside. In many places the roof had fallen in, the side
walls contained many gaping holes, and the stone floor was broken
away in many places, showing yawning, black caverns below. They saw
hundreds of bats clinging to projections, but the ugly creatures
were silent in sleep now.
"Bur-r-r-r-r!" murmured Ned. "I shouldn't like any of 'em to fall on
me."
"No, it's not a very nice place to go in," agreed Tom.
They saw that the temple consisted of two parts, or two circular
buildings, one within the other. Around the outer part were many
rooms, which had evidently formed the living apartments of the
priests. There were galleries, chambers, halls and assembly rooms.
Then the whole of the interior of the temple, under a great dome
that had mostly fallen in, consisted of a vast room, which was
probably where the worship went on. For, even without going farther
than to the edge of it, the youths could see stone altars, and many
strangely-carved figures and statues. Some had fallen over and lay
in ruins on the floor. The whole scene was one of desolation.
"Come on," invited Tom, "it's healthier and more pleasant outside.
Let's look for that tunnel."
But the lads soon realized that it was not going to be as easy to
locate this as they had hoped. They were looking for some sort of
slanting opening, going down into the earth--the entrance to the
underground city--but though they both made a complete circuit of
the temple, each at a varying distance from the outer walls, no
tunnel entrance showed.
"Breakfust! Breakfust!" called Eradicate, when Tom was about to
start on a second round.
"Let's eat," suggested Ned, "and then we four can circle around
together." Tom agreed that this would be a good plan. A little later
then, with Tom nearest the temple walls, the four began their march
around them.
Four times that morning they made the circuit, and the same number
in the afternoon, until they were nearly half a mile away from the
ruin, but no tunnel showed.
"Well, we'll have to keep at it to-morrow," suggested Tom. "It's too
soon to give up."
But the morrow brought no better success, nor did the following two
days. In fact for a week they kept up the search for the tunnel, but
did not come upon it, and they had now pretty well covered the big
plain. They found a few ruins of the ancient city of Poltec.
"Well, what about it?" asked Ned one night as they sat in the
balloon, talking it over. "What next, Tom?"
"We've got to keep at it, that's all. I think we'll go up in the
balloon, circle around over the plain at just a little elevation,
and maybe we can spot it that way."
"All right, I'm with you."
But they did not try that plan. For in the middle of the night Ned
suddenly awakened. Something had come to him in his sleep.
"Tom! Tom!" he cried. "I have it! What chumps we were!"
"What's the matter, old man?" asked Tom anxiously. "Are you sick--talking
in your sleep?"
"Sleep nothing! I've just thought of it. That tunnel entrance is
INSIDE the temple. That's the most natural place in the world for
it. I'll bet it's right in the middle of the big inner chamber,
where the priests could control it. Why didn't we look there
before?"
"That's right; why didn't we?" agreed Tom. "I believe you're right,
Ned! We'll look the first thing in the morning."
They did not wait for breakfast before trying the experiment, and
Mr. Damon and Eradicate went with Tom and Ned. It was no easy work
to make their way over the ruins to the inner auditorium. Wreckage
and ruin was all around, and they had to avoid the yawning holes on
every side. But when they got to the main, or sacrificial chamber,
as Ned insisted on calling it, they found the floor there solid. In
the centre was a great altar, but to their chagrin there was not a
sign of a tunnel opening.
"Fooled again!" said Tom bitterly.
"Maybe some of those holes outside is the entrance," suggested Mr.
Damon.
"I don't believe so," objected Tom. "They seemed to go only to the
cellar, if a temple has such a thing."
Bitterly disappointed, Tom strolled over and stood in front of the
big stone altar. It seemed that he must give up the search. Idly he
looked at the sacrificial stone. Projecting from it was a sort of a
bundle.
Tom took hold of it, and to his surprise he found that it could be
moved. Hardly knowing what he was doing, he pulled it toward him.
The next instant he uttered a cry of horror, for the immense stone
altar, with a dull rumbling, rolled back as though on wheels, and
there, over where it had stood was a hole of yawning blackness, with
a flight of stone steps leading down into it. And Tom stood so near
the edge that he almost toppled in.
"Look! Look!" he cried when he could get his gasping breath, and
step back out of danger.
"The tunnel entrance!" cried Ned. "That's what it is! You've found
it, Tom! The entrance to the city of gold at last!"