by Rex Stout
Chapter XXI.
THE MIDST OF THE ENEMY.
Harry and I stood gazing at each other blankly in the semidarkness ofthe cavern.
"But it isn't possible," I objected finally to my own thoughts. "Shewould have cried out and we would have heard her. The spear may havebeen there before."
Then I raised my voice, calling her name many times at the top of mylungs. There was no answer.
"They've got her," said Harry, "and that's all there is to it. Thecursed brutes crept up on her in the dark--much chance she had ofcrying out when they got their hands on her. I know it. Why did weleave 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 werevery similar to one another, except that the one in the middle slopedupward at a gentle incline, while the others were level.
"One is as good as another," I observed, and entered the one on theleft.
Once started, we advanced with a rush. The passage was straight andnarrow, 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'mafraid we're on the wrong trail."
Still as I had said, one chance was as good as another, and we did notslacken our pace. The passage went straight forward, without a bend.The roof was low, just allowing us to pass without stooping, and thewalls 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 updirectly in our path.
"At last, a turn!" panted Harry.
But it was not a turn. It was the end of the passage. We had beenfollowing a blind alley.
Harry let out a string of oaths, and I seconded him. Twenty minuteswasted, and another twenty to return!
There was nothing else for it. We shouldered our spears and started toretrace our steps.
"No use running now," I declared. "We can't keep it up forever, and wemay as well save our strength. We'll never catch up with 'em, but wemay 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 itin the first place. On the raft we probably descended altogethersomething like five hundred feet from the level where westarted--possibly twice that distance. And this passage which slopesupward 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 ourpath.
In spots the passage was so narrow that two men could hardly havewalked abreast through it, and its walls were rough and irregular, withsharp 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, hesuddenly disappeared from sight as though swallowed by the mountain.
Rushing forward, I saw him scrambling to his feet at the bottom of achasm some ten feet below. Luckily he had escaped serious injury, andclimbed up on the other side, while I leaped across--a distance ofabout six feet.
"They could never have brought her through this," he declared, rubbinga bruised knee.
"Do you want to go back?" I asked.
But he said that would be useless, and I agreed with him. So westruggled onward, painfully and laboriously. The sharp corners of therocks cut our feet and hands, and I had an ugly bruise on my leftshoulder, besides many lesser ones. Harry's injured knee caused him tolimp and thus further retarded our progress.
At times the passage broadened out until the wall on either side wasbarely visible, only to narrow down again till it was scarcely morethan a crevice between the giant boulders. The variation of theincline was no less, being at times very nearly level, and at othersmounting 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 atthe foot of a towering rock Harry gave a cry of joy and ran forward. Ihad not known until then how badly his knee was hurt, and when I cameup to where he was bathing it in the stream and saw how black andswollen it was, I insisted that he give it a rest. But he absolutelyrefused, and after we had quenched our thirst and gotten an easy breathor two we struggled to our feet and on.
After another hour of scrambling and failing and hanging on by ourfinger nails, the way began to be easier. We came to level, clearstretches with only an occasional boulder or ravine, and the rockbecame less cruel to our bleeding feet. The relief came almost toolate, for by that time every movement was painful, and we made but slowprogress.
Soon we faced another difficulty when we came to a point where a splitin the passage showed a lane on either side. One led straight ahead;the other branched off to the right. They were very similar, butsomehow the one on the right looked more promising to us, and we tookit.
We had followed this but a short distance when it broadened out to suchan extent that the walls on either side could be seen but dimly. Itstill sloped upward, but at a very slight angle, and we had littledifficulty in making our way. Another half-hour and it narrowed downagain to a mere lane.
We were proceeding at a fairly rapid gait, keeping our eyes strainedahead, when there appeared an opening in the right wall at a distanceof a hundred feet or so. Not having seen or heard anything torecommend caution, we advanced without slackening our pace until we hadreached it.
I said aloud to Harry, "Probably a cross-passage," and then jerked himback quickly against the opposite wall as I saw the real nature of theopening.
It led to a small room, with a low ceiling and rough walls, dark as thepassage in which we stood, for it contained no light.
We could see its interior dimly, but well enough to discover the formof an Inca standing just within the doorway. His back was toward us,and he appeared to be fastening something to the ceiling with strips ofhide.
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 thatthe wall leading away in front of us--that is, the one on theright--was marked as far as the eye could reach with a succession ofsimilar openings.
They were quite close together; from where we stood I could see thirtyor forty of them. I guessed that they, too, led to rooms similar tothe one in front of us, probably likewise occupied; but it wasnecessary to go on in spite of the danger, and I pulled again atHarry's arm.
Then, seeing by his face that something had happened, I turned my eyesagain on the Inca in the room. He had turned about, squarely facingus. As we stood motionless he took a hasty step forward; we had beendiscovered.
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 singlebound, and bore the Inca to the floor under us.
My fingers were round his throat, Harry sat on him. In a trice we hadhim securely bound and gagged, using some strips of hide which we foundsuspended 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, andblacker than night. Her body was innocent of any attempt at c
overing.
Altogether, not a very pleasant sight; and we bundled her into a cornerand proceeded to look round the room, being careful to remain out ofthe 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 onecorner 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 theroom. From the ceiling were suspended other hides and some strips ofdried fish.
Some of the latter we cut down with the points of our spears andretired 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 wefound some water in a basin in the corner and drank--not withoutmisgivings. But we were too thirsty to be particular.
Then Harry became impatient to go on, and though I had no liking forthe appearance of that long row of open doorways, I did not demur.Taking up our spears, we stepped out into the corridor and turned tothe right.
We found ourselves running a gantlet wherein discovery seemed certain.The right wall was one unbroken series of open doorways, and in each ofthe rooms, whose interiors we could plainly see, were one or more ofthe 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 gazingstraight at us, and I gathered myself together for a spring; but hemade no movement of any kind and we passed swiftly by.
Once a little black ball of flesh--a boy it was, perhaps five or sixyears old--tumbled out into the corridor under our very feet. Westrode over him and went swiftly on.
We had passed about a hundred of the open doorways, and were beginningto entertain the hope that we might, after all, get through withoutbeing discovered, when Harry suddenly stopped short, pulling at my arm.At the same instant I saw, far down the corridor, a crowd of blackforms moving toward us.
Even at that distance something about their appearance and gait told usthat they were not women. Their number was so great that as theyadvanced they filled the passage from wall to wall.
There was but one way to escape certain discovery; and distasteful asit was, we did not hesitate to employ it. In a glance I saw that wewere directly opposite an open doorway; with a whispered word to HarryI 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 heldback, but there was nothing else for it; and in another minute we hadoverpowered and bound and gagged them and carried them to a corner.
The children were ugly little devils and the woman very little above abrute; still we handled them as tenderly as possible. Then we crouchedagainst the wall where we could not be seen from the corridor, andwaited.
Soon the patter of many footsteps reached our ears. They passed;others came, and still others. For many minutes the sound continuedsteadily, unbroken, while we sat huddled up against the wall, scarcelydaring 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 abjectterror. Still the patter of footsteps sounded from without, with nowand then an interval of quiet.
Struck by a sudden thought, I signaled to Harry; and when he had movedfurther back into his corner I sprang across the room in one bound tohis side. A word or two of whispering, and he nodded to show that heunderstood. We crouched together flat against the wall.
My thought had come just in time, for scarcely another minute hadpassed 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. Ihad not counted on two of them! In the arms of each was a great coppervessel, evidently very heavy, for their effort was apparent as theystooped 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 camefrom the woman in the corner; the two men glanced at them with a startof wonder; and as I had foreseen, they ran across and bent over theprostrate forms.
The next instant they, too, were prone on the floor, with Harry and meon top of them. They did not succumb without a struggle, and the one Ihad chosen proved nearly too much for me.
The great muscles of his chest and legs strained under me with a powerthat made me doubtful for a moment of the outcome; but the Incasthemselves had taught us how to conquer a man when you attack him frombehind, and I grasped his throat with all the strength there was in myfingers.
With a desperate effort he got to his knees and grasped my wrists inhis powerful black hands and tore my own grip loose. He was half-wayto his feet, and far more powerful than I; I changed my tactics.Wrenching myself loose, I fell back a step; then, as he twisted roundto get at me, I lunged forward and let him have my fist squarelybetween the eyes.
The blow nearly broke my hand, but he dropped to the floor. The nextinstant I was joined by Harry, who had overcome the other Inca withlittle difficulty, and in a trice we had them both bound and gaggedalong with the remainder of the family in the corner.
Owing to my strategy in withholding our attack until the Incas had gotwell within the room and to one side, we had not been seen by thoseconstantly passing up and down in the corridor without; at least, noneof them had entered. We seemed by this stroke to have assured oursafety so long as we remained in the room.
But it was still necessary to remain against the wall, for the softpatter 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, afterseeing the women, it is little wonder if they spend most of their timeaway from them. He is welcome to his repose in the bosom of hisfamily."
There passed an uneventful hour. Long before it ended the sound offootsteps had entirely ceased; but we thought it best to take nochances, and waited for the last minute our impatience would allow us.Then, uncomfortable and stiff from the long period of immobility andsilence, we rose to our feet and made ready to start.
Harry was for appropriating some of the strips of dried fish we sawsuspended from the ceiling, but I objected that our danger lay in anydirection other than that of hunger, and we set out with only ourspears.
The corridor was deserted. One quick glance in either directionassured us of that; then we turned to the right and set out at a rapidpace, down the long passage past a succession of rooms exactly similarto the one we had just left--scores, hundreds of them.
Each one was occupied by from one to ten of the Incas lying on thecouch which each contained, or stretched on hides on the floor. No onewas 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 traversedupward 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 noisesounded behind us. We glanced over our shoulders as we ran, and at thesame instant an Inca spear flew by not two inches from my head andstruck the ground in front.
Not a hundred feet to the rear we saw a group of Incas rushing alongthe passage toward us. Harry wheeled about, raising his spear, but Igrasped him by the arm, crying, "Run; it's our only chance!" The nextmoment we were leaping forward side by side down the passage.
It would have fared ill with any who appeared to block our way in thatmad dash; but it remained clear. The corridor led straight ah
ead, withnever a turn. We were running as we had never run before; the blackwalls flashed past us an indistinguishable blur, and the open doorwayswere blended into one.
Glancing back over my shoulder, I saw that the small group of Incas wasno longer small. Away to the rear the corridor was filled with rushingblack forms. But I saw plainly that we were gaining on them; thedistance that separated us was twice as great as when we had firststarted to run.
"How about it?" I panted. "Can you hold out?"
"If it weren't for this knee," Harry returned between breaths andthrough 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 himthe keenest agony; his face was white as death.
Then I uttered a cry of joy as I saw a bend in the passage ahead. Wereached it, and wheeled to the right. There was solid wall on eitherside; 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 tothe left. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw that our pursuers had notyet reached the first turn. Harry kept in the lead, and was giving meall 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 lengthI grasped Harry by the arm and stopped him. We stood for two fullminutes listening intently. There was absolutely no sound of any kind.
"Thank Heaven!" Harry breathed, and would have fallen to the ground ifI 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, stillbreathing heavily and all but exhausted.
In that darkness and silence the minutes passed into hours. We talkedbut little, and then only in whispers. Finally Harry fell into arestless sleep, if it may be called that, and several times I dozed offand was awakened by my head nodding against the stone wall.
At length, finding Harry awake, I urged him to his feet. His kneebarely supported his weight, but he gritted his teeth and told me tolead 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 morechance!"
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 forone was about to give up the disheartening task when suddenly a soundsmote our ears that caused us first to start violently, then stop andgaze 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 cavernswith 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 wasso sure of myself that we started off to the right. The echoes of thebell 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 weintended to do after we found it.
A short distance ahead we came to another passage, crossing at rightangles, broad and straight, and somehow familiar. As with one impulsewe took it, turning to the left, and then flattened ourselves backagainst 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 aftergroup of the savages passed in the corridor ahead. Their numberswelled to a continuous stream, which in turn gradually became thinnerand 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 forwardand soon had reached the corridor down which they had passed. Wefollowed in the direction they had taken, turning to the right.
We had no sooner turned than we saw that which caused us to glancequickly at each other and hasten our step, while I smothered theejaculation that rose to my lips. The corridor in which we now foundourselves stretched straight ahead for a distance, then turned to oneside; and the corner thus formed was flooded with a brilliant blaze oflight!
There was no longer any doubt of it: we were on our way to the greatcavern. For a moment I hesitated, asking myself for what purpose wehastened on thus into the very arms of our enemies; then, propelled byinstinct or premonition--I know not what--I took a firmer grasp on myspear and followed Harry without word, throwing caution to the winds.
Yet we avoided foolhardiness, for as we approached the last turn weproceeded slowly, keeping an eye on the rear. But all the Incasappeared to have assembled within, for the corridor remained deserted.
We crept silently to the corner, avoiding the circle of light as far aspossible, and, crouching side by side on the rock, looked out togetheron 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 thanbefore; the alcove which held the golden throne was far off to ourleft, nearly half-way round the vast circumference. On the throne wasseated the king, surrounded by guards and attendants.
As before, the stone seats which surrounded the amphitheater on everyside were filled with the Incas, crouching motionless and silent. Theflames in the massive urns mounted in steady tongues, casting theirblinding glare in every direction.
All this I saw in a flash, when suddenly Harry's fingers sank into theflesh of my arm with such force that I all but cried out in actualpain. And then, glancing at him and following the direction of hisgaze, I saw Desiree.
She was standing on the top of the lofty column in the center of thelake.
Her white body, uncovered, was outlined sharply against the blackbackground of the cavern above.
