success, and holding the necklace towards his companions as if it were a
hard-won trophy, Miranda suddenly spun around like a top, his arms shot
straight out in front of him, and in this posture, before any one knew
what he was about, he fairly raced towards the ominous apparatus at the
end of the corridor and hurled himself on the oblong stone beneath it.
XIV
THE BLACK MAGNET
For once Doctor Miranda had nothing to say. To the eager queries of
those about him he returned a grimace and a scowl of rage. Then he asked
savagely for Mrs. Quayle.
"There is her neckalace," he said indignantly, letting go his hold on
that extraordinary piece of jewelry and scrambling to his feet with as
much dignity as was left to him.
"Will you tell me what all this means?" demanded Leighton sternly.
"How I know?" retorted Miranda, glaring venomously at him. "I pull the
neckalace from the neck, and it fly from me. When I follow, it fly more
fast--and it get stronger and it fly harder every time until it touch
the rock. Then it stop and not come loose."
Sure enough, on the greenish-black rock over which they were bending,
the necklace was spread out to its full length. With a quick jerk,
Leighton dislodged one of the ends from its resting place. Letting it
go, it returned to its original position with the sharp snap of a steel
spring.
"A magnet! The most amazing magnet ever heard of!" exclaimed Leighton.
"A magnet that pull gold!" scoffed Miranda. "That is the foolishness!"
But Leighton was right. Each time the necklace was pulled away it was
drawn back to the rock by a strong, invisible force. Repeated trials
brought the same result. Leighton's curiosity was excited as it had
never been before; but his most careful examination of the strange
phenomenon failed to detect anything more than the fact that the
substance exerting this unknown force was not stone but something more
nearly akin to metal. It was neither so heavy nor so hard as iron. To
the touch its surface faintly resembled the adhesive softness of velvet,
although a blow from a stone, causing a clear, ringing sound, left
not the slightest mark upon it. In the main, this block of metal--or
whatever it might be called--was a deep black, tinged with a variegated
shade of green that played over it according to the angle at which
the ray from a light held above it was reflected. Dark lines of green
followed the indentations traversing its surface. Cylindrical in shape,
it weighed, according to Leighton's estimate, at least a ton. Imbedded
in a deep groove around its center was a rope, measuring two inches in
diameter, of pliable fiber, resembling the long lianas that festoon the
trees of a tropical forest. This rope lay in a seamanlike coil on the
ground, with the further end attached to the transverse beam of the
scaffolding overhead.
"It is a magnet, nothing else," reiterated Leighton; "a magnet of a kind
utterly unknown to science. All we can say is that this black metal has
an affinity for gold--unless it turns out that Mrs. Quayle's jewelry is
merely iron gilded over."
This doubt as to the genuineness of the housekeeper's treasures was
promptly denied, however, by Una, who guaranteed their sterling quality.
"Let us test the rest of her jewelry," proposed Leighton.
To this further demand on her property Mrs. Quayle, wedged in between
two rocks on the path where they had left her, too terrified to move,
offered only a feeble protest. It mattered little to her, in her present
condition, if her bracelets and brooch followed the necklace to their
doom. One by one they were, accordingly, removed by Una, who, probably
because she was less excitable than Miranda--and because, too, she had
profited by his untoward experience in the same undertaking--was able to
handle these pieces of jewelry without mishap. The force with which they
were pulled towards the Black Magnet, however, and the tenacity with
which they stuck to it, gave ample evidence that they answered to the
same influence that still held the necklace.
"That is enough," said Leighton triumphantly. "The thing is proved.
This is a gold magnet. If we lived in the Middle Ages we would call it
the Philosopher's Stone. The theory that such a substance exists has
attracted scientists who were more given to dreaming than practical
observation. In this age we have neither looked for it nor believed in
the possibility of its existence. And here it is!"
"What it make here?" demanded Miranda. "Tied by a rope to the
machine--some one use it."
The inference, logical enough, certainly, increased Leighton's
excitement. That the magnet was known and used by the inhabitants of the
cave--if there were inhabitants--was evident. Under certain conditions
a bar of metal that could attract gold with such force as that displayed
by the Black Magnet would be of untold value. Here, where there were no
evidences of mining operations, and attached to this primitive machine,
it was difficult to explain what it was actually used for.
Leighton, more and more mystified, determined that the best way to solve
the puzzle was to operate the machine in the manner indicated by its
structure. It was not, as he pointed out--but as they in their first
excitement imagined--a gallows. Instead, it was a winch, built in the
most simple and archaic fashion; and as the Black Magnet was attached
to it, the evident purpose was to hoist that huge body from the ground.
Before testing this theory, Mrs. Quayle, who had recovered from her
collapse sufficiently to join the others, insisted that her jewelry
should be released from the magnet. Suspicious of the intentions of
some of her companions, she was determined to regain possession of her
treasures at once. But, as it was apparently impossible to wear her
jewelry with comfort, or even safety, in the immediate vicinity of the
Black Magnet, necklace, brooch and bracelets were removed to a distant
corner of the corridor and there placed beneath a pile of stones. This
done, the four men started to work the two long handles of the winch.
At first these were turned with difficulty, the resistance proving, at
least to Leighton's satisfaction, that the machine had not been used for
a long time. Gradually, however, the coil of liana was transferred from
the ground to the transverse beam overhead until it pulled taut with the
magnet beneath.
Then came the real trial of strength. The magnet wouldn't budge.
Miranda puffed and grumbled over the task, declaring it impossible.
The rest stopped and rubbed their arms ruefully. But Leighton was
inexorable. Encouraging the others, and keeping them at it, by dint of
increased exertion--to which Una brought additional assistance--the
great Black Magnet was finally dragged from its moorings and held
suspended just above the ground. It formed a perfect cylinder, about
four feet long by a foot and a half in diameter, and must have weighed,
they estimated, considerably over a ton--ten tons, vowed Miranda. On
a winch of modern design this weight would not have been difficult to
lift. But the hoisting apparatus they were using lacked the ordinary
adjustments for counterbalancing such weights; hence, the muscular force
needed proved no small matter.
"It take twenty men to lift this magnet," growled Miranda.
"Twenty men could do it more easily than four men and a woman,
undoubtedly," replied Leighton. "But four can do it."
And he was right. Inch by inch the magnet rose from the ground--for
what ultimate purpose was not very clear, any more than that it was
thought necessary by Leighton, in order to discover the use to which
this strange bar of metal had been put, first to test the appliance
obviously intended to bring it into action. It reached a height of one
foot from the ground, then two, then three feet; then it stopped. There
were groans and smothered imprecations, and it looked very much as if
the huge bar of metal would come crashing down to the ground again. But
the men, urged on by Leighton, did not give in. And then--there was a
grating noise, as if some hidden mechanism in the scaffolding had been
set free. After which a strange thing happened. The transverse beam
at the top of the windlass detached itself from one of the uprights
supporting it and, using the other upright as a fulcrum, slowly swung
to the wall of the cave, where it rested in a socket, bringing the
magnet that was suspended from it, directly over a shelf-like projection
beneath.
"Keep on! Keep on!" cried Leighton encouragingly. "Now we will see."
Thoroughly aroused, the others redoubled their exertions. The magnet
remained stationary for a few seconds, the liana supporting it
tightening with every revolution of the drumhead at which the men were
laboring. Then it slowly disappeared downward, the liana uncoiling
itself, thus reversing the movement that before had carried it upward.
There was a gradual increase in the momentum of its descent, followed
by the splashing sound caused by the impact of a heavy body upon the
surface of a pool of water; after which the liana was paid out until it
reached its full length--when it suddenly slackened and came to a full
stop.
"There, Mrs. Quayle, is your water," announced Leighton.
"Water!" sneeringly echoed a voice from the darkness behind them. "Say,
rather, there is the secret of Guatavita!"
"Raoul Arthur!" exclaimed the others.
Letting go the handle of the windlass, they rushed to the spot where the
Black Magnet had vanished. There, at one side of the rocky projection,
stood Raoul, pale and haggard, the light in his lamp extinguished.
"I suspected this," he said, as if his sudden reappearance among them
were the most natural thing in the world. "I knew from the direction
of the path that it led back to the lake. I have been trying to reach
this place for years. Oh, yes! I had heard something about it before--I
don't deny that. But, of course, I expected to stay by you. So, when you
started to leave the cave I came back, expecting to rejoin you. As I was
examining the machine I was attacked by two men, thrown to the ground
and left unconscious. I came to myself a few minutes ago--in time to
congratulate you, it seems, upon solving the mystery of the cave."
"That is strange," said Leighton coldly. "You left us, without a word,
at a time when you were needed. The attack that you say was made upon
you we should have heard. But--we have heard nothing."
"Believe me, or not, as you like; it is true," was the sullen reply.
"Why do you say we have the secret of Guatavita?"
"Look!"
Raoul pointed to the projection in the wall behind which the Black
Magnet had disappeared. It was not a shelf, as they had at first
supposed, but the opening of a shaft, or well, that slanted downward
at an angle that in the course of fifty feet, or less, would reach
considerably beyond the vertical line of the cave's wall. In shape this
shaft was oblong, slightly larger in length and in breadth than the
Black Magnet. It was evidently of artificial origin, its four walls
being perfectly smooth and without irregularities of line. Even by one
who had not seen the magnet descend into this shaft, its intended use
as a sort of runway for raising and lowering heavy bodies would be
quickly recognized. But where it led to was another matter. One thing
was easily discovered: where it reached a point some twenty feet below
the level of the cave's floor the shaft was filled with water. Beyond
this, of course, nothing could be made out. It was to the bottom of the
pool thus indicated that the magnet had plunged.
"It is a well hewn out of the rock by Indians--or perhaps by Spaniards
digging for gold," said Leighton.
"I believe that we are the first white people who have ever stood in
this place," said Raoul; then added, "unless David Meudon was here three
years ago."
"But what is it about?" demanded Miranda impatiently. "What for is the
magnet, and this well, and this machine?"
"Pull up the magnet and see for yourself," was the laconic reply.
"Caramba! That will be impossible," protested the doctor, not relishing
the prospect of another turn at the machine.
"It is the logical thing to do," agreed Leighton.
The rest shared Miranda's aversion to another bout at the winch; but
Leighton, backed by Raoul Arthur, finally persuaded them that their only
hope of escape from the cave depended on keeping at this puzzle until
they had solved it, and that the first step in this direction was to
hoist the Black Magnet from its watery resting place at the bottom of
the shaft. Reluctantly obeying the command, they again seized the long
handle of the windlass. This time it was fortunate they had Raoul to
help them, since the resistance offered by the magnet, which now had to
be hauled up an inclined plane by means of a rope nearly one hundred
feet in length, was considerably greater than before. The windlass
creaked and trembled as revolution after revolution of the drumhead
slowly brought the great black bar of metal nearer to the surface.
They could hear the far off swirl of the water as the ascending liana
vibrated through it. Minutes that seemed to lengthen into hours passed
without appreciable result. Then, at last, they heard the water rising
as the magnet reached the mouth of the shaft. There was an additional
strain on the liana, followed by the noise of a commotion in the
subterranean pool as the liquid streams poured back from the emerging
body.
But still the end to their work was not in sight. With every turn of
the handle the weight of the body at which they were pulling seemed to
increase. Mrs. Quayle, sole spectator of what was happening, watched
the opening of the well with dismal apprehension, convinced that some
dreadful transformation had taken place in its hidden depths. When the
top of the magnet finally rose into view she shrieked hysterically. To
her notion the great black body had an uncanny look; it had turned into
a devil, for aught she knew, filled with evil designs against them.
Anything that was supernaturally horrible, she believed, could happen in
this cave--and there was enough in her recent experiences, indeed, to
give some color to her belief.
But, devil or djinn, the water dripped and splashed in sparkling runlets
from the shining body of the Black Magnet that had gained in luster
since its submersion in the well. It seemed more alive than before, more
capable of exerting the mysterious force that had played such pranks
with Mrs. Quayle's jewelry. As it cleared the top of the well the arm of
the windlass to which it was hung, as if obeying some invisible signal,
detached itself from the socket in the wall and slowly swung back into
its original position between the two uprights of the machine. Here, as
before, a reverse motion took place. The Black Magnet was poised for a
moment in the air. It then descended to the ground, resting, finally, in
the same spot where the explorers first discovered it.
A sigh of relief escaped them. Hoisting heavy weights was not much to
their taste and they were glad the task was over. Then they rubbed
their eyes, half expecting to see something miraculous, some sudden
transformation as a result of their labors. But the Black Magnet, except
for the brilliance due to its bath in the depths of the earth, looked
exactly as it was before. This, it must be confessed, was disappointing
to those who had been promised great rewards for toiling so patiently at
the windlass. Raoul had declared the experiment would solve the secret
of Guatavita. But they failed to see how a wet rock--or bar of metal,
whichever it might be--with mud sticking to it, had any connection with
a secret. Raoul, however, was not disconcerted. Getting to work on the
magnet, he examined minutely every inch of its surface. At first he
found nothing. Then, to the amazement of the others, he extracted from
one of the large fissures in the magnet a thin disc encrusted with
the microscopic growths that form on metals that are long subjected
to the action of water. This disc proved its metallic nature by the
force needed to release it from the magnet. Much of the brown matter
sticking to it was wiped away with a cloth, the more tenacious growth
beneath was rubbed and scraped with a sharp stone. When the scouring
was finished Raoul triumphantly held up the disc. It was a dazzling
plate of gold, thin and flexible, rudely carved to resemble a human
being. In size it was not more than the palm of one's hand, somewhat of
that shape, a trifle longer and narrower, with a projection, intended
to depict a man's head, face and neck, like a pyramid standing on its
apex, upon which were traced in embossed lines three loops to represent
the mouth and eyes, with another line running down the middle, long and
straight, to represent the nose. The body of the figure was similarly
carved--raised lines folded over the stomach for arms, with various
loops and coils around the neck and chest, intended, doubtless, to
indicate the ornaments and insignia of rank worn by the image or,
rather, the human being or god for which it stood. All this was done in
the finest gold tracery, which, if it lacked some of the subtleties of
the goldsmith's art as we know it, was expressed, nevertheless, with
admirable delicacy and firmness. In the head of the figure was a round
hole showing, doubtless, that the disc was worn as a pendant by its
owner, or was hung as a votive offering before his or her household
deity.
Leighton had seen figures of like character and workmanship in Bogota,
where they were exhibited as ornaments worn by the ancient Chibchas.
Usually they were said to have been brought up by divers from the bottom
of Lake Guatavita. Hence, there was little doubt as to the origin and
antiquity of the disc presented to them by the Black Magnet. But how
this disc came to be at the bottom of a well in this vast subterranean
labyrinth was not so easily answered. If this disc was the much talked
of clew to the lost treasure of the Chibchas, and to all the other
mysteries that seemed to crop up at every step the further they went
into this cave, it was not an easy one to run down. And then, Miranda,
who had insisted all along that by following the direction in which they
had been going they were bound to reach the lake, blundered upon the
answer to the whole question.
"It is Guatavita!" he said.
Of course, that was it! Herran and Leighton gasped for a moment as they
took in the idea, and then they agreed that Miranda was right. Raoul
smiled enigmatically as they discussed the problem in detail.
"Well, do you understand it now?" he asked. "Have you discovered
Guatavita's secret? I wish I had known it three years ago!" he added
bitterly.
"Ah! I see--I see!" shouted the doctor excitedly. "There is the well
that come out at the bottom of the lake. Here is the magnet that go down
there just when the people throw in all the gold. And then it come back
here--and no one know except the king and his family. So, every year,
they take all the gold of the country. Ah! they are very wise leetle
fellows, those kings!"
"Then, if this is true," said Leighton meditatively; "if this well has
its outlet at the bottom of the lake, and was made and used secretly
to collect, by means of the Black Magnet, the treasure offered by the
people in the Feast of El Dorado, to-day there is no gold left in
Guatavita."
"If it were drained of all its waters," remarked Raoul, "I believe that
the emptied basin would be found to contain nothing more than a few
stray gold ornaments--like the one you fished up just now--that failed
to reach the Black Magnet when they were flung into the lake centuries
ago."
"Your plans to empty the lake, then, are useless?"
"After what I have learned to-day, added to what I have long suspected,
I should say--quite useless."
"But the fabulous amount of treasure those deluded people threw into the
lake for centuries----?"
"Has all come up here, where we are standing now, caught by the Black
Magnet."
"He fish very well, this leetle stone," said Miranda, caressing it
fondly. "He catch more, better fish than the whole world."
"Where is all that gold to-day?" demanded Leighton.
"Ah! Where!"
"Good heavens! What is that?"
While Leighton and Raoul were discussing the old problem of what became
of the Chibcha Empire's far-famed treasure, the others had wandered away
from the Black Magnet and were examining some of the strange objects in
its immediate vicinity. The more familiar they became with this portion
of the cave, the more signs they saw in it of human occupation. For one
thing, the place was honeycombed with paths, most of them radiating
from the shaft that sank to the bottom of Lake Guatavita. These paths
led in different directions; but there was no way of telling whether
any or all of them had been recently used. This question was of more
immediate interest than the one connecting the cave with the fate of
the ancient Chibchas. If this cave was inhabited to-day--if it was the
hiding place of a lawless gang of Bogotanos, for example--it was well
for the explorers to be on their guard. Herran was particularly alive
to this possibility, and he was quick to heed, therefore, Mrs. Quayle's
terrified exclamation, which she repeated--
"Good heavens! What is that?"
It was at the head of one of the paths, running behind the close ranks
of stalactites before which they had found their way from the large open
cave beyond, that Mrs. Quayle stood, her eyes round with excitement,
pointing vaguely at something in front of her. But the others could
see nothing. Indeed, it was hard to tell whether she had really seen
anything worth serious investigation, her chronic nervousness had such
an uncomfortable habit of discovering specters--that did not exist--in
every dark corner. Then, too, clusters of stalactites had a way of
taking on odd, fantastic shapes that might easily seem to be alive
even to the cool-headed. But this time there really was substance to
Mrs. Quayle's fancies. She continued to point down the pathway of
stalactites, crying repeatedly--
"What is that?"
"Well, what is it?" demanded Leighton.
"The man in the toga! The man in the toga!" she cried breathlessly.
The others crowded about her.
"It is nothing!" said Miranda incredulously.
"It is! It is!" whispered Una. "I just caught the flash of white drapery
at the bend in that farthest corridor."
Raoul laughed. "You are mistaken," he said. "Nothing is there now,
that's certain."
They stood silently watching the dark green-and-white figures that
stretched away in closely huddled ranks before them. But they could
detect nothing that answered to Mrs. Quayle's description. There was
nothing that moved, nothing human, in all that glittering array of
grotesque forms. Then, there was a sharp, clinking sound, as if the
brittle point of a stalactite had been broken off and had fallen to the
ground.
"We are watched," said Leighton in a low voice. "Whoever they are, these
people have some reason for following us--and keeping out of the way."
"Time to be on our guard," said Herran in Spanish to Miranda, who
assented vehemently.
"Nonsense!" exclaimed Raoul.
"Ah! You say that?" growled Miranda suspiciously. "This is one trap of
yours, then!"
The accusation added to the general alarm. Raoul protested scornfully;
but before he had time to clear himself he was covered by two huge
revolvers, drawn simultaneously by Herran and Miranda.
"It is not so easy!" threatened Miranda, whose excited flourish of
firearms endangered the others quite as much as it did Raoul.
"Thank heaven, we have guns!" murmured Andrew, who had produced a
harmless looking pocket-knife which he brandished ineffectively.
"This sort of thing is very annoying," said Leighton, addressing
Raoul, who began to show uneasiness. "There's no denying that your
disappearance was suspicious. Then we find you here in a place that
is evidently known and frequented by others. Your explanation is
unsatisfactory. Then, when the presence of these hitherto invisible
people is quite certain, you try to divert our attention from them."
"You are talking nonsense," said Raoul disgustedly. "You intimate that I
am in league with the inhabitants of this cave against you. That means,
I must have lured you here deliberately to do you harm. Please remember
that it was you who planned this expedition, and that I had not ventured
in here so far before."