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CHAPTER XV.
THE BOYS DISCOVER THE TOLTEC’S “SESAME.”
They arrived at camp as day was breaking and found everything just as they had left it. The first thing to be done was to get out the medicine chest and bandage Billy’s wounded head after antiseptics had been applied to it. It was only a flesh wound but the weapon, – most probably the butt-end of a rifle, – with which he had been struck, had inflicted a glancing cut that was painful. After a hasty breakfast the boys turned in and slept like tops till late afternoon.
The remainder of the day was spent in describing to the astonished Billy, who soon recovered his usual cheerful attitude toward life, the queer incident of the bell-ringer and the carved quesal on what the boys had already termed Treasure Cliff.
“Yes, but,” objected Billy, “any one might have amused themselves by carving it there, – cave-dwellers or something, – of course,” – he hurried on – “I don’t know much about these things, but it looks to me like a waste of time to go digging round there on a chance.”
“I guess you don’t know much about it, Billy,” smiled Frank, “the quesal was a sacred symbol of the Toltec priests and it would have been as much as an ordinary citizen’s life was worth to have carried it or drawn it anywhere, at any time.”
“That’s so,” agreed Billy, “as you say, Frank, I don’t know much about these things. I’m better at digging up stories than treasure. What do you propose to do?”
“Well,” said Frank, “my idea was this. We will overhaul an outfit to-night, and to-morrow morning we will start out for the foot of the cliff. We will mark out a space there extending in a semi-circle of which the center will be a point directly below the quesal’s beak and see what we can turn up. We three should be able to do a good bit of earth turning in a day, and if we find nothing we can take a fly back to La Merced. We are due there to-morrow night anyway, and if we don’t show up father will be worried.”
“A bully program,” cried Billy.
“With a bully lot of hard work involved,” retorted Frank.
Before they turned in that night the boys had selected the outfit they would take. Frank and Harry, of course, carried their pocket electric torches, rifles, revolvers and canteens. The blankets and such provisions as they thought it necessary to take along were done up in neat rolls. Billy was nominated the axe-man of the party, and Frank and Harry took the spade and the pick. Altogether when they set out as soon as it was light enough to see they were a formidable-looking party of pioneers.
They arrived at the foot of the cliff without adventure and set to work clearing away the dense undergrowth which matted the ground at the foot of the rocky wall. Frank had first driven a peg into the ground at a point as nearly in a plumb line with the down pointing beak of the quesal as he could strike. He attached to this a bit of cord about fifteen feet in length and with this improvised compass marked out a semi-circle in which to carry on operations.
The boys’ watches indicated noon by the time they had the brush cleared and three very tired but excited lads sat down to a hasty lunch. They knew that the preliminary work had now been done and if they were on the eve of any important discovery that the afternoon’s work would probably decide it.
Lunch disposed of they set to work with a will on breaking up the ground. In this the axe and the pick wielded by Billy and Frank came in useful. They pulverized the ground – which in some places was as tough as hard-pan – so that it was easy for Harry to follow along with the shovel and spade up great clods of it. The hands of all three were soon covered with blisters and Billy, who had not yet fully recovered from his trying experiences, was fain, before the work had progressed very far, to throw down his axe with the confession:
“Boys, I’m all in.”
He was directed to sit in the shade and watch the work which he did in a rather shamefaced way although he had endured the struggle against exhaustion pluckily enough while his strength held out.
Frank’s semi-circle had been pretty well dug over by the time that the great clouds of nesting parrots from the feeding-grounds in the valley began to circle with harsh cries above the trees on the mountain-side which formed their dormitory. Harry threw down his shovel with a cry of disgust.
“Hadn’t we better call it a day, Frank,” he said, “we have dug up enough earth for a subway excavation and haven’t discovered a clue. I guess that quesal of yours was put up there for a joke – it looks like it’s been one on us all right.”
But Frank was not discouraged so easily.
“Half-an-hour more and then we quit,” he agreed, “but let’s give it one more try.”
“On that condition all right,” replied Harry, “but I’m a union man, when it comes to this sort of a job. Eight hours is enough for me, thank you.”
For perhaps twenty minutes more the boys dug in silence when suddenly Frank uttered a sharp exclamation.
His pick had struck something that gave out a ringing sound!
When he announced the news in a voice choked by excitement there was no more lethargy on Harry’s part – even Billy forgot his aching head and sore hands and went to work with a will. In fifteen minutes or so they had uncovered a large flat stone with a ring of some kind of dull metal imbedded in the center. With a loud cheer all three boys, their fatigue entirely forgotten, joined hands and executed a wild sort of war-dance round their excavation, which was perhaps three feet or so deep.
When they had danced their enthusiasm out the practical Frank somewhat dashed the hopes of the others, after carefully examining the stone, by saying quietly:
“It looks good, boys; but we’ve got to raise it.”
Here was indeed a poser. They all three tugged at the ring till their already sore hands were almost raw but not even a tremor ran through the stone which was about four feet long by three wide.
“We have no means of telling how thick it is,” said Frank, in a discouraged tone, “it may weigh ten tons for all we know.”
“We might dynamite it,” suggested Billy.
“Yes, and advertise our find to the whole country,” retorted Harry.
“I wonder what’s under it,” surmised Billy.
“Lemons perhaps,” mischievously laughed Harry.
While the other two were talking the energetic Frank had been at work. Jumping into the hole he had carefully scraped round the edge of the stone like a man trying to get a waxed cork out of a bottle.
The edges of the stone fitted so closely to the live-rock surrounding it, however, that his hope of finding a crack, in which they could put a lever and pry up the rock, was blasted. There seemed to be no way of solving the puzzling problem. All the treasures of Golconda might have been concealed under the mighty rock and the boys would have no more chance of getting at them than if they had been securely locked in the center of the earth.
It was not Frank’s nature to give anything up without a struggle to solve it, however, and he suggested one more try.
“Maybe it is balanced in some way,” he suggested.
“A good idea,” commented Harry. “What’s the matter with our all getting on one side of it and jumping together when one of us says, ‘Go.’”
“We might try it,” said Frank dubiously, “but I’m skeptical that we will obtain any results.”
“We’ll get a lot of exercise anyhow,” chimed in Billy.
“As if we hadn’t had enough to-day,” indignantly cried Harry.
Laughing – despite their anxiety – at the ridiculous sight they must present the three boys placed their arms on each other’s shoulders and solemnly pranced up and down on the rock first at one end and then at the other. Then they tried jumping on its sides. The great boulder didn’t even quiver. It was as solid under their feet as the face of the cliff itself.
“Looks like we’ll have to give it up,” said Frank at last in a disgusted tone.
“Yes, I don’t see what else we can try,” Harry agreed, “whoever stowed that rock away meant that no one but himself should ever get it up again.”
“He must have been a hopeful young party if he ever figured on doing it by his lonesome,” commented Billy, “unless he was some sort of a giant.”
“Maybe he had some magic words he chanted over it like:
“Eeny, meeny, minney mo,” suggested Harry, solemnly chanting the mystic rhyme, as if he half expected to see the rock swing back in response.
“Yes – or open sesame, – like in the Arabian Nights,” scornfully remarked Billy. “Come on, let’s quit it. It will be dark before we get back to camp if we don’t hurry.”
“We certainly have had a fine day’s work for nothing. Just to think that we’ve got to pack all this stuff back to camp with us after all instead of using it to explore the Toltec Caves of Treasure Cliff,” cried Harry, speaking the last words in a highly melodramatic tone.
“You’re a fine old fraud,” he yelled at the unmoved quesal, – looking down from the cliff, with its sunken eye, as it had gazed for almost uncounted centuries. “If I could get up there I’d fix you so as you wouldn’t fool anyone else. I’ll just take a chuck at you for luck anyway. That old unwinking orb of yours irritates me.”
As he spoke the lad stooped down and selected a large flat stone and flung it full at the carved figure with the down-pointing beak.
“Bang in the eye;” he shouted, “give me a walking-stick, Mr. Showman, I” —
Whatever he was going to say was cut short by a wild shout from Frank.
“Good lord!” he yelled, “Look there!”
Billy and Frank followed his finger as he stood pointing on the edge of the excavation.
Slowly; as if some invisible hand was pushing it up on delicately-adjusted hinges – the big rock was swinging open from its sleep of the ages!
As it yawned wider and wider the first steps of a rough flight of stairs, – apparently cut out of the living rock, – were disclosed. From the aperture, as it gaped wider, rushed out a breath of air so fetid and poisonous that the boys grew sick and faint under its baleful odor.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE FIGURE ON THE CLIFF
The boys held a hasty consultation as soon as they had retreated a safe distance from the reeking fumes of the Toltec excavation. Till the foul air of the place, probably stagnant for many hundred years, had been given a chance to pour out, it would have been folly to have wasted time on an attempt to descend into the black hole that the swinging back of the huge rock had revealed. There seemed to be little doubt, after the mystery had been discussed again and again, that Harry’s lucky shot had released some spring hidden in the quesal’s eye and caused the boulder to open. It seemed incredible; – but there was no other explanation, and it was decided to defer all discussion of the matter till a thorough examination could be made of the interior of the cavern they had stumbled upon for the hidden mechanism.
In the meantime a hasty camp was pitched, although there was little thought of sleep in the minds of any of the boys and after supper had been despatched they sat up long, with eyes that refused to grow drowsy, talking over what they were likely to find on their exploration trip, which they had agreed to undertake as soon as it grew light enough to make a start – always providing that the foul air of the place had cleared sufficiently to make such a thing feasible.
At Frank’s suggestion watches were finally set, the night being divided into three sections. Harry volunteered for the first, Frank for the second and Billy agreed to tackle the last. He was given the opportunity to select a short period of watching as both boys realized, although he indignantly disclaimed it, that he must be still feeling some effects of exhaustion from his wound.
Harry kept up a fire, for although it was not chilly the boys knew that once in a while a jaguar, bolder than his fellows, had been known to attack rubber-cutters, and they were by no means inclined to have the success of their expedition marred by anything approaching a tragedy. Having nothing better to do the lad amused himself by singing in a not particularly melodious way. Harry knew more about aeroplanes than he did of music and the tone effects he produced were something weird.
He had just attained a particularly high note and was congratulating himself – as is the way of people who have accomplished something they didn’t think they could do – when a sound that had startled both Frank and himself before, suddenly brought his satisfaction to an abrupt period.
It was the mysterious bell again!
It was pealing with the same frenzied, timeless clamor that it had manifested on the two previous occasions they had heard it, but it sounded somehow much nearer than it had from the camp on the plateau.
“Ahoy there!” shouted Harry; determined if there was a human agency at work to get some sort of reply, “ahoy!”
There was only the echo of his voice coming hollowly back from the face of the cliff for an answer.
His shouts, however, awoke Frank and Billy.
“Whatever is the matter, Harry?” demanded Frank.
“It’s the bell again,” replied Harry in awestruck tones.
Before Frank could frame an answer or Billy could speak, the furious pealing broke out anew.
“Why, it’s close at hand – somewhere!” exclaimed Frank, after he had listened attentively, his head on one side, for several seconds.
“Sounds as if it might come from the cliff itself;” said Billy; who was feeling rather nonplussed as the metallic clashing continued without interruption, but in the same furious aimless way already familiar to the boys.
“That’s right, Billy,” agreed Frank, “if I’ve got any ear for location of sound it is coming from the cliff.”
“How can it come from there!” protested Harry, as the bell ceased as suddenly as it had begun, “I’m sure we looked carefully enough over that wall of rock, and there’s nothing even resembling an opening in it – even supposing,” he added “that anyone would be crazy enough to climb up there – which they couldn’t do anyhow – and ring a bell.”
“Perhaps it’s some kind of a bird or animal,” suggested Billy, eager to find some satisfying solution of the uncanny sound.
“Yes, a chimes-bird or a bell-rabbit,” scornfully snorted Harry, “no, we’ll have to do better than that.”
“There’s no doubt it’s a sure-enough bell,” decided Frank.
“And a good loud one, too,” replied Harry. “I never heard a clearer or better one even on a church.”
“But who in thunder can be ringing it?” resumed Frank.
“There we are, back at the beginning of the question again,” rejoined Harry disgustedly.
“You can’t convince me that it hasn’t got something to do with the cave,” exclaimed Frank. “Possibly with the very door we uncovered to-day.”
“I suppose the man who rings it marches in prompt at midnight every night – when we had to dig up the ground with pick-axes before we could get it loose enough to shovel – try again, Frank;” laughed Harry.
“Mightn’t it be monkeys?” was Billy’s contribution.
“Where would they get the bell?” demanded Frank.
“Hum; that’s so,” replied Billy, abashed at the dashing to earth of the theory he had so hopefully advanced.
“If he’d start up again,” said Frank suddenly, “we could get a line on just where the sound is coming from and then when it gets light examine every foot in that direction.”
Both his listeners agreed that this would be a good idea. But if the bell-ringer had heard them and maliciously made up his mind not to grant their wish he could not have remained more silent.
“Perhaps if you’ll sing again, Harry,” remarked Frank, unkindly, after the younger boy had related for the dozenth time how the bell-ringing of that particular night had started; “he will get mad and start pulling the rope once more.”
Overlooking the deliberate insult, in his desire to find out if the bell-ringer would not oblige, Harry lustily started an old high-school song. But though he sang till his throat cracked, and his listeners’ ears ached, he disturbed nothing but an old white owl that flew from some hiding-place on the face of the cliff, and flapped solemnly round the boys’ camp, – its great yellow eyes gleaming wickedly.
“R-r-r-r-r,” shivered Billy, as the silent bird wheeled by them so close they could almost have touched it, and suddenly let out an ear-splitting screech that made all the boys jump in spite of themselves. “I hope that it isn’t some spirit, or something, of the old Toltecs that has been ringing the bell to keep us away from their cave. I don’t mind anything I can hit with a firearm but I haven’t much fancy for going into a haunted cave.”
“The only ‘hants’ you’ll find in there will be bats and a few relatives of our white-feathered friend that just disturbed you – I hope you are not going to sport any plumage of his color,” laughed Frank.
“Come, Frank, that isn’t fair,” protested Billy, indignantly, “and I saw you jump yourself when that old owl let out that holler.”
“I didn’t mean it seriously,” laughed Frank, good-naturedly, seeing that he had really hurt Billy’s feelings, “but you don’t, for a moment suppose that there is anything in whatever those steps may lead down to but dust and darkness and bad air, do you?”
“I don’t, eh?” retorted Billy angrily, “well, what do you think I dug till I nearly dropped dead for – my health?”
“I suppose you are figuring on running into a treasure trove as soon as we get in there,” grinned Harry. “If they took as much care to hide their valuables as they did to lock the front door we’ll be a long time, and have a lot of hard work before us, – before we discover the Toltecs’s secret.”
“Pshaw,” replied Billy magnanimously, “what do you suppose I care for the hard work? Anyhow I wasn’t serious with you fellows. There might be all the treasure the Toltecs ever saw, – and Captain Kidd and Sir Henry Morgan thrown in, concealed in that cave, or whatever it is at the bottom of that passage, but I’ve no right to even a share of it – I’m far too deeply in the debt of you fellows for anything like that.”
“No, Frank; no, Harry; it isn’t the money I care about at all – though I don’t deny I can always use all I get my hands on. That’s not the point, however, this is your discovery, not mine, and I’m going to help you out on it all I can. I don’t want a penny, but if we really find any buried treasure the very idea of it will be all I want in the way of a big sensation.”
“Nonsense, Billy,” rejoined Frank, touched at the reporter’s earnestness. “We are in this thing as partners. We all share the dangers, we’ll each take an equal share of the reward, always supposing there is any.”
“Of course we will, Billy,” put in warm-hearted Harry, “and when we get back to America you’ll be able to buy the Planet and fire your managing editor.”
“I don’t know of anything I’d like better,” replied Billy in all seriousness, while the boys shouted with laughter at his grave face, “although,” he added, “I do owe him a debt of gratitude for sending me down here.”
“I don’t see what you’ve done for the paper, Billy, however,” returned Frank.
“The wires are all tied up, aren’t they?” replied the business-like Billy, “what could I get through? As a matter-of-fact I’m getting more good material, sticking round with you fellows, than I could collect in a year by myself.”
Further conversation was cut short at this point by a sudden cry from Harry, who had been sitting with his knees clasped gazing up at the dark sky, which was dissected as though by a knife-blade by the black wall of the cliff-summit where it cut across it.
“What is it, Harry?” demanded Frank.
“Well, there’s something very funny about that cliff, that’s all, – or else I’ve got optical delusions,” rejoined the youth in an earnest tone.
“Yes,” said his hearers breathlessly, for Harry’s startled face was sufficient evidence that he had seen something surprising.
“You can believe me or not, as you like,” returned Harry, “but a few seconds ago, as you and Billy were talking, I’ll swear I saw a man’s figure outlined against the sky at the top of the cliff.”
CHAPTER XVII.
THE TOLTEC’S STAIR
Viewed in the cheerful light of the next morning the uncanny happenings of the night did not have nearly so serious a complexion. In fact both Frank and Billy were sorely tempted to laugh at Harry, and the latter himself was also inclined to think that he might have been mistaken about the figure on the cliff. He even went so far as to admit, under a severe fire of cross-examination that it might, – mind you he only said it might – have been a monkey.
“He must have been a monkey if he was up where you say you saw him, Harry,” remarked Billy, deftly transferring a slice of sizzling hot bacon from the smoking tin roaster above the camp-fire onto a plate formed of a round of pilot bread, for this conversation took place at breakfast.
Immediately the meal was concluded the boys, of course, made a rush for the hole. It still smelled musty and fusty, but the overpowering gaseous fumes of the preceding evening seemed to have vanished. Frank was not going to run any risks, however, and under his direction the two other boys set about collecting a huge pile of dried brush which was shoved down into the hole with long branches and then a lot of blazing tinder thrown in on top of it. To the boys’ delight the stuff blazed up fiercely and with no indication that the air was too full of gas for combustion to take place; which was a certain sign that it was healthy to breathe.
Accordingly there was soon plenty of bustling preparation about the camp while the boys got in readiness for the decisive plunge into the unknown. There were canteens to be filled at a spring that gushed from the cliff not far away, firearms to be examined and pockets searched to make sure that matches in their waterproof boxes had not been forgotten. Last of all, when everything was ready, Frank with an air of triumph produced half-a-dozen tallow candles.
“Well, you are a wonder,” cried Billy. “Whatever made you think of fetching those along?”
“What made the cat stay out of the wet, Master Barnes?” replied Frank merrily, “Forethought. Of course we have our electric torches,” he added, “but the candles will shed a more diffused light.”
Arrived with their baggage at the edge of the hole there was an excited contest between Harry and Billy as to who should enter first. Frank decided the matter by going himself. With a lighted candle held above his head he carefully descended the first of the steps and warned the boys behind him to be cautious, as they had no means of knowing what sort of a pitfall they might encounter at any moment. For the first few feet of course they had the light of day to guide them; and never had it seemed so sweet to them as when, after they had descended about twenty feet or so, they were plunged into pitchy darkness.
With Frank’s candle shedding a yellow glare about them they descended fearlessly after him down what seemed to be an interminable staircase. They had so far followed a straight course down with a slight incline which led inward beneath the face of the cliff. The steps were cut deep and wide and, except for the damp slime with which they were covered, the lads had no difficulty in following them or in maintaining a foothold.
“Can’t we light our candles, too, Frank, and have a little more light?” asked Harry suddenly after the little train had descended in silence for some minutes.
“We’ve got all the light we want,” responded the young leader, “and besides, we can’t afford to waste illumination. We may need it badly before we get through.”
As they got lower the walls of the stairway, as wide as the opening itself where they had entered, began to close in until the boys’ elbows were rubbing against the walls on either side of them.
“This would be an awkward place to get caught in by anything coming the other way,” remarked Frank, “we couldn’t even turn round.”
His mouth had hardly framed the words when he uttered a sudden shout of “Lookout!”
The next minute the boys felt a great billow of wind coming toward them and a queer rushing sound as of a great river flowing between rocks. Frank’s candle was blown out instantly and they were enveloped in total darkness.
Frank and Harry felt their faces beaten against by countless leathern wings and Billy was fairly knocked over by the onslaught, – which had scared him not a little. It was all over as quickly as it had begun almost.
“Jimminy crickets, what on earth was that?” demanded Billy, picking himself up.
“Bats,” laughed Frank, “no wonder they were in a hurry to get out. They must have been imprisoned in here since last that stone swung into place.”
“I hope they’ve all taken their walking, or rather flying papers,” commented Billy, sputtering and coughing as were the other boys from the terrific dust the creatures had fanned up with their wings, “anything more like that would get on my nerves.”
Frank soon had his candle relit and they resumed their descent. The stairway did not continue very much further, however. When they had reached a point which Frank estimated must have been back underground about half a mile from the face of the cliff their feet suddenly encountered a hard level floor. It was a welcome change from the monotonous downhill march.
“We have a few tons of mountain on top of us now,” remarked Harry, who had also taken careful note of the direction the stairway followed.
“Yes,” agreed Frank, who had verified his guess of the direction in which they had been proceeding by his compass. “Just think of the work those fellows – or rather their slaves – accomplished when they dug this tunnel through solid rock without powder or dynamite, so far as we know.”
“It must have been well traveled,” exclaimed Harry, “look here.” He called his brother’s attention to the narrow walls of the stairway by which they had descended. They were grooved on each side, at a height of about three and a half feet, with a smooth, worn, shallow sort of trench.
“What did that, do you suppose?” asked Billy.
“Slaves’ elbows, no doubt,” replied Frank, “the thousands of people who must have used this passage in the dead centuries could easily have worn away the walls in that manner. Just as,” he continued, “in old cathedrals you will find the altar steps worn by the knees of the countless worshipers who have knelt there.”
“Maybe they were bringing out treasure,” hazarded Billy.
“That’s entirely likely,” replied Frank, “in such a case their burdens would naturally have expanded their arms till they rubbed these grooves in the walls with the passage of time.”
The little party had come to a halt during this conversation, but now Frank turned to the others.
“We can take our choice,” he said, “of going on or of returning to the surface and getting together a more complete equipment.”
The unanimous vote was for keeping on, at least for a time, and the Chester Expedition under its young leader took up the march again. Now, however, the walls of the level passage along which they were proceeding seemed to have broadened out and they could walk three abreast without difficulty instead of proceeding Indian file as hitherto. The air of the passage too seemed purer than that of the staircase, and Frank even thought at times he could detect a cool draught, coming from some unknown outlet possibly. It was, however, insufferably hot; with the close, ardent heat of a coal mine.
The passage began to take a gentle gradient upward after they had proceeded along it for about half an hour, and as they pushed on the air grew noticeably fresher. When Harry held up his candle they could see that the roof of the passage was dripping with huge stalactites of a whity color that glistened as the flame fell on them. On either side too they could perceive the wet gleam of the walls. They were still in a confined place.
They pushed ahead in this manner for perhaps fifteen minutes more when suddenly Frank stopped short.
“Don’t come a step further,” he cried sharply.
The other boys poured out their questions.
“Hark!” was the only reply vouchsafed by Frank.
As he spoke he poked at the floor of the cave with the tip of his shoe and dislodged a stone. He gave it a kick forward and the boys, with tingling scalps and a cold shudder down their spines, heard it plunge down – down into unknown depths till the sound died out in a tiny tinkle, and all was silent as a tomb again.
“Phew!” gasped Harry, “that was a narrow escape, how did you detect it, Frank?”
“I came pretty near not discovering it in time,” laughed the young leader, who now that the danger was over was busy holding his candle at every angle to see what their surroundings might be, “as luck would have it, however, my foot dislodged a small pebble just as I was about to step over into what would have been eternity. I heard it drop down just as you fellows heard the larger one. I guess we’ll have to thank that little bit of stone for saving the life of one of us at any rate.”
“Let’s light up and see where we are?” suggested Harry, after the boys, fascinated by the mystery of the vanishing sound, had hurled dozens of rocks into the depths.
“I hate to squander the candles, but I suppose we’ll have to,” replied Frank. “This one of mine doesn’t come near lighting up the place.”
A simultaneous gasp came from the boys as, with all three candles lighted, they peered over into the black gulf that yawned at their feet. It was a huge fissure, possibly twelve feet across, and of unknown depth. It reached clear from wall to wall of the passage, which at this point had broadened out into what Harry called “a regular Council Chamber.” As if to verify his words the light of the boys’ combined candles revealed that the walls were carved with countless figures of quesals and other hieroglyphics intended apparently to typify the ceremony of the sacrifice. Dust and time, however, had done their work, and in many places the figures were chipped away altogether where the rock had flaked off.
At the further side of the chasm they could make out a spot of darker black against the inky surface of the rock which Frank rightly took to be the mouth of a continuation of the tunnel.
