CHAPTER XI
THE LOST CITY
Hardly had the rumble of the falling bridge passed when Jud slipped hisarm about Will's shoulders and half-led half-dragged the fainting boyaround the corner of a great rock.
"Those yellin' devils shoot too straight for us to take any chances," heremarked briefly.
The same idea had come to the rest of the party, and they followed hardon the old trapper's heels. Here Professor Ditson again took the lead.
"It'll take them some time to get across that river, now the bridge isdown, if they follow us," he observed with much satisfaction. "We oughtto reach Machu Pichu to-day and Yuca Valley in two days more. Therewe'll be safe."
"What's Machu Pichu, Chief?" questioned Jud, using this title ofrespect for the first time; for the professor's behavior at the bridgehad made an abiding impression on the old man's mind. "It was the firstcity that the people of the Incas built," explained Professor Ditson.
"When the Inca clan first led their followers into these mountainvalleys, they were attacked by the forest-dwellers and driven back intothe mountains. There they built an impregnable city called Machu Pichu.From there they spread out until they ruled half the continent. Only theforests and the wild tribes that infested them they never conquered. Atthe height of the Inca Empire," went on the scientist, "Machu Pichubecame a sacred city inhabited mostly by the priests. After the SpanishConquest it was lost for centuries to white men until I discovered it afew years ago."
"Where do we go from Yuca?" questioned Jud again.
"Follow the map to Eldorado," returned the Professor, striding alongthe path like an ostrich.
Beyond the rock, and out of sight of the canyon, gaped the mouth of atunnel fully three hundred yards in length. Narrow slits had beenchiseled through the face of the precipice for light and air, andalthough cut out of the living rock with only tools of hardened bronzeby the subjects or captives of forgotten Incas, it ran as straight andtrue as the tunnels of to-day drilled by modern machinery under thesupervision of skilled engineers. Through the slits the adventurerscaught glimpses of the towering peak down which they had come, but therewas no sign of their pursuers. In a moment they had vanished from thenaked rock-face against which they had swarmed.
Joe stared long through one of the window-slits, while below sounded thehoarse, sullen voice of the hidden river.
"I not like their going so soon," he confided at last to Jud. "Perhapsthat Dawson have another secret way down the mountain, as he did atWizard Pond."
"It's not likely," returned Professor Ditson, who had overheard him."At any rate, the only thing to do is to press on as fast as possible."
"Why didn't my snake-skin make us safe from those people?" inquired Joe,as they hurried along.
"Because," explained the scientist, "the Miranhas are an outlaw tribewho have no religion and keep no faith. Nothing is sacred to them."
Beyond the tunnel a wide pavemented road led around the rear of themountain and then up and up and in and out among a wilderness of peaks,plateaus, cliffs, and precipices.
In spite of the well-paved path along which in the old days the Incashad sent many an expedition down into the Amazon Valley, the progress ofthe party was slow. Will became rapidly weaker and for long stretcheshad to be helped, and even carried along the more difficult parts of thepath.
Hour after hour went by. Once they stopped to eat and rest, but theirtireless leader hurried them on.
"We're not safe on this side of Machu Pichu," he said.
Will pulled himself to his feet.
"I'm the one who's keeping you all back," he said weakly. "From now on Iwalk on my own legs!" And, in spite of the others' protests, he did so,forcing his numbed nerve-centers to act by sheer strength of will.Toward the middle of the afternoon the path turned an elbow of rock, andin front of them towered a chaos of grim and lonely peaks, spiring abovecanyons and gorges which seemed to stretch down to the very bowels of theearth. In the background were range after range of snow-cappedmountains, white as the clouds banked above them, while in front showeda nicked knife-edge of dark rock. The professor's face lightened as helooked.
"On that ridge," he said, stretching out his arm, "lies the Lost City!"
The path led downward until, although it was early afternoon, it becamedim twilight in the depths of dark canyons, and then, twisting like asnake, came back to the heights, skirting the edges of appallingprecipices in a series of spirals. As the way reached the summit of theridge it became narrower and narrower, and at intervals above it stoodstone watch-towers on whose ramparts were arranged rows of greatboulders with which the sentinels of the Incas could have swept aninvading army down to destruction in a moment. The path ended at last ina flight of steps cut out of the solid rock, with a wall on each side,and so narrow that not more than two could walk up them abreast. It waspast sunset when the little party reached the last step and stood on thesummit of the windswept ridge. In the east the full moon was risingabove the mountains and flooded the heights with light white as meltingsnow.
Before them stretched the city of Machu Pichu, its shadows showing inthe moonlight like pools of spilled ink. Lost, lonely, deserted by menfor half a thousand years, the great city had been the birth-place ofthe Incas, who ruled mightily an empire larger than that which Babylonor Nineveh or Egypt held in their prime. In its day it had been one ofthe most impregnable cities of the world. Flanked by sheer precipices,it was reached only by two narrow paths enfiladed by watch-towers,eyries, and batteries of boulders. To-night the terraces were solitaryand the strange houses of stone and vast rock-built temples empty andforsaken.
In the moonlight this gray birth-place of an empire lay before thetravelers from another age, silent as sleep, and, as they passed throughits deserted streets, the professor told them in a half-whisperthousand-year-old legends which he had heard from Indian guides. At thefar side stood the great watch-tower Sacsahuaman, guarding the otherpath, which spiraled its way up the slope of a sheer precipice half amile high.
"The Inca who built that," said the professor, "gave the tower its name.It means 'Friend of the Falcon,' for the Inca boasted that the hawkswould feed full on the shattered bodies of any foe who tried to climbits guarded heights."
On the summit of a sacred hill he showed them a square post carved outof the top of a huge rock whose upper surface had been smoothed andsquared so that the stone pillar made a sun-dial which gave the time tothe whole city. Near by lay Sayacusca, the "Tired Stone," a vastmonolith weighing a thousand tons, which was being dragged to the summitby twenty thousand men when it stuck. As the carriers struggled to moveits vast bulk, it suddenly turned over and crushed three hundred ofthem. Convinced that they had offended some of the gods, the stone wasleft where it fell, and the skeletons of its victims are beneath it tothis day.
High above the rest of the city was the sacred Sun Rock. From it the sunitself was believed to rise, nor might it be touched by the foot ofbird, beast, or man. At the height of the Inca Empire it was plated allover with gold, which the Peruvians believed fell to the earth as thetears of the sun, and with emeralds and, except during the Festival ofthe Sun, covered with a golden-yellow veil. To-day its glory haddeparted, and the tired travelers saw before them only a frayed andweather-worn mass of red sandstone.
Seated on its summit, the scientist showed them the street where,during the Festival of the Sun, the Inca would ride along a pavementmade of ingots of silver on a horse whose mane was strung with pearlsand whose shoes were of gold. Beyond the Sun Rock was the Snake Temple,which had three windows and whose solid stone walls were pierced withnarrow holes through which the sacred snakes entered to be fed by thepriests.
"We might camp there," suggested Professor Ditson. "It would make alarge, comfortable house."
"No, no," objected Jud shudderingly. "No snake temple for me."
They finally compromised on Sacsahuaman, whose thick walls were slithere and there by narrow peep-holes and whose only entrance was by anarrow staircas
e of rock cut out of the cliff and guarded, like most ofthe entrance staircases, by rows of heavy boulders arranged along theledge. Inside were long benches of solid stone, and, best of all, at thebase of a white rock in the center of the tower trickled an ice-coldspring whose water ran through a little trough in the rock as it had runfor a thousand years. Professor Ditson told them that in the old days ithad always been kept guarded and munitioned as a fortress where theIncas could make a last stand if by any chance the rest of the cityshould ever fall into the hands of their enemies.
That night they kindled a fire within the tower, and ate their supperhigh above the sacred city on the battlements where the guards of theIncas had feasted a thousand years before Columbus discovered the NewWorld. Afterward they slept, taking turns in guarding the two entrancesto the city from the same watch-towers where other sentries had watchedin the days of the beginning of the Inca Empire.
The next morning Will could not move. The stress and strain and exertionof the day before had left him too weak to throw off the numbing effectof the virus. Professor Ditson shook his head as he looked him overcarefully.
"There is only one thing to do," he said at last. "We must send onahead and get a horse or a burro for him. He has walked too much as itis. Any more such strain might leave him paralyzed for life. Hen," hewent on, "you know the trail to Yuca. Take Joe and start at once. Youought to run across a band of vaqueros herding cattle long before youget to the valley. Bring the whole troop back with you. I'll pay them,well, and they can convoy us in case the Miranhas are still after us."
A few minutes later Hen and Joe were on their way. Leaning over theparapet of Sacsahuaman, the rest of the party watched them wind theirway slowly down the precipice until they disappeared along the trailthat stretched away through the depths of the canyon. All the rest ofthat day Jud and Pinto and the professor took turns in standing guardover the two entrances to the city, and in rubbing Will's legs andgiving him alternate baths of hot and cold water, the recognizedtreatment for stings of the maribundi wasp.
That night it was Jud's turn to guard the staircase up which the partyhad come. Once, just before daybreak, he thought he heard far below himthe rattle and clink of rolling stones. He strained his eyes through thedark, but could see nothing, nor did he hear any further sounds. Inorder, however, to discourage any night prowlers, the old trapperdropped one of the round boulders that had been placed in thewatch-tower for just such a purpose, and it went rolling and crashingdown the path.
Daylight showed the trail stretching away below him apparently empty anduntrodden since they had used it when entering the city. Tired ofwaiting for Professor Ditson, Jud hurried up the steep slope to thefortress, meeting the scientist on the way to relieve him. The oldtrapper was just congratulating Will on being well enough to stand onhis feet when a shout for help brought all three with a rush to theentrance of the tower. Up the steep slope they saw Professor Ditsonrunning like a race-horse, while behind him showed the giant figure ofDawson, followed closely by half a hundred Miranhas. In another minuteProfessor Ditson was among them.
"They must have hidden during the night around a bend in the path andrushed up when we changed guards," he panted. "They were swarming intothe tower just as I got there."
All further talk was stopped by the same dreadful tumult of war-criesthat the travelers had learned to know so well.
"Steady, boys," said Jud, instantly taking command, as a veteran of manyIndian fights. "Four against fifty is big odds, but we've got a strongposition. Will, you sit by the staircase an' if any one starts to comeup, roll one of them fifty-pound boulders down on him, with mycompliments. I'll stay back here where I can watch the whole wall an'pick off any one that tries to climb up. Professor, you an' Pinto keepback of me, with your ax an' knife handy in case any of them get pastme. Now," he went on, as the three took their stations, "how about somebreakfast?"
After the first fierce chorus of yells there was a sudden silence. Ledby Dawson, the Indians were far too crafty to attempt a direct charge upthrough the narrow gateway. The roofless walls, no longer raftered byheavy timbers, as in the Inca's day, were the weak spot in the defenseof the besieged. If enough of the Miranhas succeeded in scaling them inspite of Jud's markmanship, the defenders of the fort could beoverpowered by sheer weight of numbers. While the little party of thebesieged were eating breakfast at their several stations, they couldhear the sound of heavy objects being dragged across the paved streetwithout, and the clink and jar of stone against the wall. Always,however, the besiegers kept themselves carefully out of the range ofvision from the tower's narrow loop-holes. At noon Jud insisted thatPinto cook and serve dinner as usual.
"Eat hearty, boys," the old Indian-fighter said. "You may never haveanother chance. I dope it out they're pilin' rocks against the wallsan' when they've got 'em high enough they'll rush us."
It was the middle of the afternoon before Jud's prophecy was fulfilled.For some time there had been no sign nor sound from the besiegers. Thensuddenly, from six different and widely separated points in thesemicircle of stone, hideous heads suddenly showed over the edge of thewall, and, with the tiger-scream of their tribe, five picked Miranhawarriors started to scramble over and leap down upon the little partybelow, while at the end of the curved line showed the scarred, twistedface and implacable eyes of the outlaw from the North.
It was then that the wiry little gray-bearded trapper showed the skilland coolness that had made his name famous throughout a score of tribalwars which had flickered and flared through the Far Northwest during histrapping days. Standing lithe and loose, he swung his automatic from hiship in a half-circle and fired three shots so quickly that the echo ofone blended with the beginning of the next. Hard upon the last reportcame the pop of Pinto's deadly blow-gun. Three of the besiegers toppledover dead or wounded, and with a dreadful shout Scar Dawson clawedfrantically at his shoulder where a keen thorn of death from Pinto'stube had lodged. The other two Indians scrambled down in terror, andthere came a chorus of appalling screams, wails, and yells from theother side of the thick wall.
Hideous heads suddenly showed over the edge of the wall]
"I could have got 'em all," remarked Jud cheerfully, polishing hissmoking automatic on his sleeve, "but I've only got four cartridges leftan' we're likely to need 'em later. Will," he went on, "you just stepover to the watch-tower there an' see if there 're any signs of Hen an'Joe. A few South American cow-boys would come in mighty handy just aboutnow."
"If they don't come before night," stated Professor Ditson calmly,"we're gone. The Miranhas are certain to rush us as soon as it getsdark."
Even as he spoke, there came from outside a wail, swelling to a shrieklike the unearthly scream of a wounded horse, yet with a note of triumphand anticipation running through it. Pinto started and shivered, whileProfessor Ditson's face showed grim and set.
"You'll have to get us first," he muttered.
"What do they mean by that little song?" inquired Jud coolly.
"It's the hag-cry that the women raise before they torture theprisoners," returned the other. "They think they're sure of us as soonas the sun goes down."
Will returned just in time to catch the last words.
"There's no one in sight," he said. "Couldn't we slip off ourselves downthe cliff?" he went on.
"Not a chance," explained the scientist. "They'd roll boulders down onus."
"Is there any way of holding them off after dark?" went on Will, after alittle pause--and had his answer in the pitying silence of the two oldermen.
For a moment he turned very white. Then he set his teeth and threw backhis shoulders.
"I'm only a kid," he said, "but I've been in tight places before. Youneedn't be afraid to talk plain."
"If they get over when it's too dark to shoot straight," said Jud atlast, "we 're all in."
Will looked at him unflinchingly.
"Watch the stairs," he said suddenly. "I've an idea." And the boyhurried back to the little parapet that ove
rhung the trail that ran athousand feet below.
Beyond and above him, the rim of the setting sun was coming nearer andnearer to the snow-capped mountains that cut the sky-line of the west.Already their white crests were gleaming crimson in the dimming light.As he went, Will fumbled in his belt and pulled out a tiny roundpocket-mirror, which, with a tooth-brush, a comb, and a few other lightarticles, he had carried all through the trip in a rubber pocketfastened to his belt.
During these happenings, miles away, concealed by the intervening range,Hen and Joe were riding at the head of a troop of hard-bitten,hard-faced vaqueros, the cow-boys of the South, whom they had met at theend of their first day's journey. Armed with Mauser rifles, and withrevolvers and knives in their belts, these riders of the pampas backedtheir wiry little South American horses with the same ease which theirbrethren of the Northern prairies showed.
The leader of the troop had turned out to be an old friend of ProfessorDitson, who had been with him on an expedition years before. He readilyagreed to journey with Joe and Hen over the mountains to the Lost City.The men had been rounding up half a dozen hardy, tiny burros, thosediminutive donkeys which can carry their own weight of freight all daylong up and down steep mountain trails. It was decided to take thesealong for the use of the travelers. With the obstinacy of their breed,however, there was never a time throughout the day when one or more andsometimes all of the burros were not balking at this long trip away fromthe ranch where food and rest were awaiting them. Accordingly, it waslate in the afternoon when the party reached the range behind which washidden Machu Pichu.
Suddenly Joe, who with Hen, mounted on spare horses, was piloting thelittle troop, caught sight of a flicker of light across the crest of thehighest peak of the range ahead of them. At first he thought that itcame from the rays of the setting sun reflected from a bit of polishedquartz. Suddenly he noticed, with a sudden plunge of his heart, that thelight was flickering in spaced, irregular intervals. With Will andseveral of the other boys of his patrol, Joe had won a merit badge forsignaling in his Boy Scout troop, and his tenacious Indian mind hadlearned forever the Morse code. As he watched now he saw the sun-raysflash the fatal S O S. Again and again came the same flashes, carryingthe same silent appeal, which he knew could come from none other thanWill behind the range, heliographing with the last of the sun to thechum who had stood back of him in many a desperate pinch.
As Joe glanced at the setting sun he realized how short a time was leftin which to save his friends. With an inarticulate cry, he turned toHen, who was jogging lazily beside him, and in a few quick words toldhim what he had read in the sky. With a shout Hen gave the alarm to thetroop behind in the rolling Spanish of the pampas, and in an instant,hobbling the burros, every man was spurring his horse desperately up thesteep trail. With the very last rays of the disappearing sun the messagechanged, and the Indian boy sobbed in his throat as he read the words.
"Good-by, dear old Joe," flickered in the sky.
As the golden rim of the sun rolled beneath the horizon, Will strainedhis eyes desperately, hoping against hope to see a rescue-party appearagainst the trail which showed like a white thread against themountain-side. Suddenly, in the dimming light, he saw a few black dotsmoving against the crest of the opposite mountain. They increased innumber, and, once over the ridge, grew larger and larger until Willcould plainly make out a far-away troop of riders and glimpse the rushof straining horses and the stress and hurry of grim-faced men. With ashout he leaned far out over the parapet until in the distance thedrumming beat of galloping hoofs sounded loud and louder.
Ten minutes later a long line of men with rifles in their hands werehurrying up the steep path that led to Sacsahuaman.
The besieged were not the only ones who knew of their coming. Outsideof the walls of the fort, the Miranha band had understood Will's shoutwhen he first saw the distant horsemen. They too had heard thehoofbeats, which sounded louder and nearer every minute, and, althoughthe path up the precipice could be seen only from the fort, yet fromwithout the besiegers could hear the clink of steel against the rocksand the murmur of the voices of the climbing men. Just before therescue-party reached the fort, Jud's quick ear caught the sound ofmuttered commands, the quick patter of feet, and through a loop-hole hesaw a black band hurrying toward the other entrance to the city,carrying with them the bodies of their dead and wounded comrades.
Even as he looked there was a shout, and into the little fortress burstthe rescue-party, headed by Hen, and Joe. In another minute they swarmedthrough the streets of the city; but the enemy was gone. At the foot ofthe other path the last of them were even then slipping into thedarkening valley.
Of all the band, alive or dead, one only had been left behind. Justoutside the thick wall of the fort lay a huge motionless form. As Judand Professor Ditson approached it they recognized Scar Dawson, desertedby the men whom he had so recently led. As they came close they saw thathe lay helpless. Only his staring eyes were fixed upon them with anexpression of awful appeal; yet there seemed to be no wound any where onhis great body. As they bent over him, Pinto pointed silently to a tinyred spot showing at the front of the outlaw's right shoulder--the markmade by one of the Indian's fatal little arrows. Jud stared sternly downat the helpless man.
"You've only got what was comin' to you," he said. "You'd have torturedevery one of us to death if you could," he went on but there was anuncertain note in his voice. "He's a bad actor if ever there was one,"he blustered, turning to the others. "Still, though, I'd hate to see anyman die without tryin' to help him," he finished weakly.
"He deserves death if any man ever did," said Professor Ditson grimly;"yet it does not seem right to let a man die without help."
"Yes," chimed in Will, looking down at the dying man pityingly; "do savehim if you can."
The professor hesitated.
"Well," he said at last, "I can and I will; but I am not at all surethat I ought."
Beckoning to one of the vaqueros, he took from his pouch a handful ofthe brown salt that is part of the equipment of every South Americancattle-man. Reaching down, he forced open the stiffening jaws of theoutlaw and pressed between them a mass of salt until Dawson's mouth wascompletely filled with it.
"Swallow that as fast as you can," he commanded.
Even as he spoke, the muscles of the man's great body relaxed as littleby little the antidote for the urari poison began to work. Fifteenminutes later, tottering and white, but out of danger, the outlaw stoodbefore them.
"I have saved your life," said Professor Ditson, "and I hope that youwill make some better use of it than you have done. Your friends wentdown that way," he continued precisely, pointing to the path along whichthe Indians had retreated. "I would suggest that you follow them."
The outlaw stared scowlingly for a moment at the ring of armed men whostood around him. Then he turned to Professor Ditson.
"For saving my life I'll give you a tip which may save yours," he saidthickly. "Don't treasure-hunt in Eldorado--_it's guarded_!" Withoutanother word he disappeared down the steep trail.
"I hope I haven't made a mistake," murmured Professor Ditson tohimself, as he watched Scar Dawson disappear in the distance.
CHAPTER XII
ELDORADO
A day and a night on burro-back brought the treasure-seekers through themountains to Yuca, the loveliest valley in the world, where ninethousand feet above the sea it is always spring. There, half a thousandyears ago, the Incas built their country houses, as of old the kings ofIsrael built in the mountain-valley of Jezreel, and among the ruins ofstone buildings, beautiful as Ahab's house of ivory, several hundredwhites and half-breed Indians had made their homes. In Yuca ProfessorDitson found many old friends and acquaintances, and the party restedthere for a week and, thanks to Jim Donegan's generous letter of credit,which had survived the shipwreck, thoroughly equipped themselves for thelast lap of the dash to Eldorado.
One morning, before the dawn of what felt like a mid-May day, theexpedition heade
d back along the trail mounted on mules, the best andsurest-footed animals for mountain work. In order to prevent anyunwelcome followers, the professor allowed it to be supposed that theywere going back for a further exploration of the sacred city of MachuPichu. When at last they were clear of the valley, with no one in sight,he called a halt, and carefully consulted his map at a point where thetrail led in and out among slopes and hillocks of wind-driven sand.
"Here is where we turn off," he said finally.
Jud suddenly produced two large, supple ox-hides which he had carriedrolled up back of his saddle.
"So long as we're goin' treasure-huntin'," he remarked "an' Scar Dawsonis still above ground, I calculate to tangle our trail before we start."
Under his direction, the whole party rode on for a mile farther, andthen doubled back and turned off at right angles from the trail, Judspreading rawhides for each mule to step on. Their progress was slow,but at the end of half a mile they were out of sight of the originaltrail and had left no tracks behind except hollows in the sand, whichthe wind through the day would cover and level.
For the next three days Professor Ditson guided them by the map among atangle of wild mountains and through canyons so deep that they were darkat midday. At night their camp-fire showed at times like a beacon on thetop of unvisited peaks, and again like a lantern in the depths of awell, as they camped at the bottom of some gorge. Here and there theycame upon traces of an old trail half-effaced by the centuries which hadpassed since it had been used in the far-away days when the Incas andtheir followers would journey once a year to the sacred lake with theirannual offerings. Even although Professor Ditson had been to Eldoradobefore, yet he found it necessary continually to refer to the map, soconcealed and winding was the way.
On the third day they reached a wide plateau which ranged just abovethe tropical jungles of the eastern lowlands. At first they crossedbare, burned slopes of rock, with here and there patches of scantyvegetation; but as they came to the lower levels they found themselvesin a forest of vast cacti which seemed to stretch away for animmeasurable distance. Some of the larger specimens towered like immensecandelabras sixty and seventy feet high, and there were clumps ofprickly-pears as big as barrels and covered with long, dark-red fruitwhich tasted like pomegranates. Underfoot were trailing varieties whichhugged the earth and through which the mules had to pick their waywarily because of the fierce spines with which they were covered. Someof the club-cacti were covered with downy, round, red fruit fully twoinches in diameter, luscious, sweet and tasting much like hugestrawberries. Jud, who firmly believed that eating was one of the mostimportant duties and pleasures of life, nearly foundered before theyreached the pampas beyond the thorny forest. There they had anotheradventure in South American foods. As they were crossing a stretch oflevel plain, suddenly a grotesque long-legged bird started up from thetangled grass and, with long bare neck stretched out horizontally andoutspread wings, charged the little troop, hissing like a goose as hecame.
"Don't shoot!" called out Professor Ditson to the startled Jud, who wasthe nearest one to the charging bird. "It's only a rhea, the SouthAmerican ostrich. He'll run in a minute."
Sure enough, the old cock rhea, finding that he could not frighten awaythe intruders by his tactics, suddenly turned and shot away across thelevel plain, his powerful legs working like piston-rods and carrying himtoward the horizon at a rate of speed that few horses could haveequaled. In the deep grass they found the nest, a wide circulardepression containing thirty great cream-colored eggs, the contents ofeach one being equal to about a dozen hen's eggs. The Professorexplained that the female rheas of each flock take turns laying eggs inthe nest, which, as a fair division of labor, the cock bird broods andguards. After incubation starts the shell turns a pale ashy gray. Theparty levied on the rhea's treasure-horde to the extent of a dozenglossy, thick-shelled eggs, and for two days thereafter they had themboiled, fried, roasted, and made into omlets, until Jud declared that hewould be ashamed ever to look a rhea in the face again.
At last, about noon of the fifth day after leaving Yuca, the trailseemed to end in a great wall of rock high up among the mountains. Whenthey reached the face of this cliff it appeared again, zigzagging up agreat precipice, and so narrow that the party had to ride in singlefile. On one side of the path the mountain dropped off into a chasm sodeep that the great trees which grew along its floor seemed as small asferns. Finally the trail ended in a long, dark tunnel, larger and higherthan the one through which they had passed on the way to Yuca. Fornearly a hundred feet they rode through its echoing depths, and came outon the shore of an inky little lake not a quarter of a mile across, andso hidden in the very heart of the mountain that it was a mystery howany one had ever discovered it. Although it sloped off sharply from itsbare white beach, Professor Ditson told them that it was only abouttwenty feet deep in the center. A cloud of steam drifting lazily fromthe opposite shore betokened the presence of a boiling spring, and thewater, in spite of the latitude, was as warm as the sun-heated surfaceof the Amazon itself.
Leading the way, Professor Ditson showed them, hidden around a bend, araft which he and his party had built on their earlier visit, from logshauled up from the lower slopes with infinite pains. Apparently no onehad visited the lost lake since he had been there, and a few minuteslater the whole party were paddling their way to the center of Eldorado,where lay hidden the untold wealth of centuries of offerings.
"If I could have dived myself, or if any of the Indians who were with mecould have done so," remarked the professor regretfully, "we need nothave wasted a year's time."
"Well," returned Jud, already much excited over the prospect of hiddentreasure, "I used to do over forty feet in my twenties, when I waspearl-divin', an' now, though I'm gettin' toward fifty, I certainlyought to be able to get down twenty feet."
"Fifty!" exclaimed Will.
"Fifty!" echoed Joe.
"Fifty!" chimed in Professor Ditson.
"That's what I said," returned Jud, looking defiantly at his grinningfriends, "fifty or thereabouts. I'll show you," he went on grimly,stripping off his clothes as they reached the very center of the littlelake, and poising his lean, wiry body on the edge of the raft. Suddenlyhe turned to Professor Ditson. "There ain't nothin' hostile livin' herein this lake, is there?" he questioned.
"I don't think so," returned the professor, reassuringly. "Piranhas arenever found at this height, and we saw no traces of any other dangerousfish or reptiles when we were here last year."
"Here goes then, for a fortune!" exclaimed Jud, throwing his hands overhis head and leaping high into the air with a beautiful jack-knife dive.His slim body shot down out of sight in the dim, tepid water.
The seconds went by, with no sign of him, until he had been under fullythree minutes. Just as they all began to be alarmed for his safety, hisgray head suddenly shot two feet out of the water near where he had gonedown. Puffing like a porpoise, with a few quick strokes he reached theedge of the raft and tossed on its surface something which clinked as itstruck the logs.
There, gleaming in the sunlight, was a bird of solid gold, which lookedlike a crow, with outspread wings, and which was set thickly with roughemeralds as large as an ordinary marble.
With a cheer, Joe and Will gripped Jud's shoulders and pulled him overthe side of the raft, where he lay panting in the sunlight, while thetreasure was passed from hand to hand.
It was nearly a foot long, and so heavy that it must have handicappedthe old man considerably in his dash for the surface.
"Pretty good for a start," puffed Jud happily, as he too examined thegleaming bird. "Unless I miss my guess," he went on earnestly, "thegreat emerald that old Jim has got his heart set on is down there, too.The bottom is pretty well silted over, but I scrabbled through the mudwith my hands, an' when I struck this I figured out that I had justenough breath left to reach the top; but just as I was leavin', myfingers touched somethin' oval an' big as a hen's egg. It was prettydeep in the mud, and I didn't d
are wait another second, but I'm sure Ican bring it up next time."
For half an hour Jud rested while Professor Ditson told themtreasure-stories which he had heard in his wanderings among the Indiantribes or remembered from his studies of Spanish archives. He told themthe story of the galleon _Santa Maria_, which was sunk off the FortuneIslands, loaded down with a great altar of solid gold incrusted withprecious stones; and of the buccaneer Sir Henry Morgan, who sackedPanama and burned and sank in the harbor what he thought were emptyvessels, but which held millions of dollars in gold and jewels in doublebulkheads and false bottoms, and which lie to this day in the mud ofPanama harbor. Then, there was the story of the two greattreasure-chests which Drake of Devon captured from the great galleon_Cacafuego_. As they were being transshipped into Drake's vessel, the_Golden Hind_, both of the chests broke loose and sank off Cano Islandon the coast of Costa Rica. Still at the bottom of that tiny harbor,thousands of pounds of gold bars and nuggets and a treasure of pearlsand emeralds and diamonds lie waiting for some diver to recover them.Then Professor Ditson launched into the story of Pizarro's pilot, who,when the temple of Pachacainac, twenty miles from Lima, was looted,asked as his share of the spoils only the nails that fastened the silverplates which lined the walls of the temple. Pizarro granted him what hethought was a trifling request, and the pilot received for his shareover two thousand pounds of solid silver.
"That's enough," said Jud, starting to his feet. "Here goes for thebiggest treasure of all."
Down and down through the dim water he dived straight and true. Hardlyhad he disappeared from sight before great air-bubbles came up and brokeon the surface, and a few seconds later wavering up from the depths camewhat seemed to be his lifeless body with staring, horrified eyes andopen mouth.
As his white face showed above the surface, Will and Joe leaped intogether, and in an instant had him out and on the raft again. Inanother minute the two boys were making good use of their knowledge offirst aid, which they had learned as Boy Scouts. Working as they hadnever worked for merit badges, they laid Jud on the raft face down, withhis arms above his head and his face turned a little to one side. Then,while Joe pulled his tongue out, Will, kneeling astride his body,pressed his open hands into the spaces on either side of his ribs. Then,alternately pressing and relaxing his weight as the water ran out ofJud's mouth and nose, Will began the artificial breathing at the rate offifteen times a minute, while Joe rubbed with all his might the oldtrapper's legs and body toward the heart. At the end of a couple ofminutes of this strenuous treatment Jud gave a gasp and at last openedhis eyes. Half an hour later he was able to tell what had happened.
"I didn't get more than half-way down," he said weakly, "when a greatgreenish-yellow eel, five feet long an' big as my arm, came glidingtoward me. I tried to pass it but in a second I felt its cold, clammybody pressin' against mine. Then came a flash, an' somethin' broke in myhead, an' the next thing I knew I was up here with you chaps workin'over me."
Professor Ditson brought his hands together with a loud clap.
"That is what Dawson meant by saying the lake was guarded," he said."What attacked Jud here was a gymnotus."
"A Jim-what?" queried Jud.
"An electric eel," explained the Professor. "The old priests must havebrought them up from the lowlands, and they have thrived here in thiswarm water ever since. It carries an electric battery in the back of itshead, and a big one can give a shock which will stun a strong man. Waita moment," he went on, "and I'll show you every electric eel within aradius of fifty yards."
As he spoke he fumbled in his knapsack and pulled out a cylinder twofeet long, wrapped in waxed paper, with a curious little clockworkattachment at one end.
"I brought along two or three sticks of dynamite equipped withdetonators," explained the professor. "They are really smalldepth-bombs. I thought," he went on, "that if the mud were too deep atthe bottom of the lake, a stick or so of dynamite exploded there mightstir things up. I'll set this one to go off half-way down, and the shockwill stun every living thing in the water for a couple of hundred feetaround."
Winding and setting the automatic mechanism so as to explode the bombat a ten foot depth, the scientist carefully threw one into the watersome distance from the raft. Two seconds later there was a dull, heavy_plop_, and the water shouldered itself up in a great wave which nearlyswamped the raft. As it went down, scores of fish of different kindsfloated stunned on the surface. Among them were a dozen great green-goldelectric eels. As they floated by, Hen slashed each one in two with hismachete.
As he finished the last one, Will began to strip off his clothes.
"I can dive twenty feet," he said, "and I'm going to have the nextchance at the Inca Emerald."
"No," objected Professor Ditson, "Let Hen try it. He's a great swimmer."
Jud also protested weakly that he wanted to go down again; but Will cutshort all further argument by diving deep into the center of the stillheaving circle of widening ripples in front of the raft. Even as he didso, Hen, who had stood up to take his place, gave a cry of warning; butit was too late to reach the boy's ears, already deep under the water.Just beyond the circle of the ripples drifted what seemed to be the endof a floating snag; yet the quick eyes of the negro had caught the glintof a pair of green, catlike eyes showing below the tip of a pointedsnout which looked like a bit of driftwood.
"It's a big 'gator," he murmured to Professor Ditson, who stood besidehim.
The latter took one look at the great pointed head and olive-coloredbody, now showing plainly in the water.
"It's worse than that," he whispered, as if afraid of attracting thesaurian's attention. "It's an American crocodile. The explosion and thesight of the dead fish have brought it over from the farther shore."
Without paying any attention to the raft or the men, the greatcrocodile suddenly sank through the water, so close to them that theycould see its triangular head, with the large tooth showing on each sideof its closed lower jaw, which is one of the features that distinguishesa crocodile from an alligator. Even as they watched, wavering up throughthe smoky water came the white figure of the boy from the depths below,swimming strongly toward the surface, his right hand clasped tightlyaround some large object. Even as they glimpsed the ascending body, agasp of horror went up from the little group on the raft. Before theirvery eyes, with a scythe-like flirt of its long, flattened tail, thegreat reptile shot its fifteen-foot body down toward the swimming boy.
Not until fairly overshadowed by the rushing bulk of the crocodile didWill realize his danger. Then he tried frantically to swerve out of theline of the rush of this terrible guardian of the treasure-horde. It wastoo late. Even as he swung away, the cruel jaws of the great saurianopened with a flash of curved keen teeth and closed with a death-grip onWill's bare thigh.
With a shout and a splash, the black form of the giant negro shot downinto the water. Hen had learned to love the happy-hearted, unselfishboy, and, desperate at the sight of his danger, had gone to his rescue.No man nor any ten men can pull apart the closed jaws of a man-eatingcrocodile. The plated mail in which he is armored from head to tail cannot be pierced by a knife-thrust and will even turn aside abullet from any except the highest powered rifles. Yet all thecrocodilians--alligators, crocodiles, gavials, or caymans--have onevulnerable spot, and Hen, who had hunted alligators in Florida bayous,knew what this was.
Swimming as the onlookers had never seen man swim before, the greatnegro shot toward the crocodile, which was hampered by the strugglingboy, locked his strong legs around the reptile's scaly body, and sankboth of his powerful thumbs deep into the sockets of the crocodile'seyes. The great saurian writhed horribly as he felt the rending pain.Inexorably the thumbs of his assailant gouged out the the soft tissuesof the eye-sockets until the crocodile reluctantly loosed his grip andsought refuge from the unbearable pain by a rush into the deeps beyondthe raft. As the great jaws opened, Hen unwound his legs from thearmored body, and, catching Will in his mighty arms, shot up to the
surface with him.
In another moment the boy, slashed and torn, but conscious, wasstretched on the raft beside Jud, while Joe and the professor bound upthe gashes in his thigh, which, although bleeding profusely, were notdeep enough to be dangerous. As the last knot of the hasty bandages wastied, Will smiled weakly and opened his right hand. There, in theoutstretched palm, gleamed and coruscated the green glory of a greatoval emerald, cut and polished by some skilful lapidarist perhaps athousand years ago. Lost for centuries, the gem which had been worshipedby a great nation had once again come to the earth from which it haddisappeared.
Three weeks later, Professor Amandus Ditson lay sleeping in a luxuriousbedroom on the ground floor of the rambling house of a Spanish friendwhom he was visiting in the beautiful, historic, blood-stained city ofLima. In other rooms of the same house slept Will and Jud and Joe. Twodays later the steamer would sail which was to take them all back north.Pinto was already on his way back to his wife and children at Para, andHen was visiting friends of his own in the city and intended to join theparty on the steamer.
The silence of the night was broken abruptly by a grating, creakingnoise, and into the room of the sleeping scientist through the verandawindow stepped a great masked figure. As the electric lights wereswitched on. Professor Ditson awoke to find himself looking into thebarrel of an automatic revolver.
"Give me the treasure from Eldorado," croaked a voice from behind themask, "if you want to keep on livin'."
The scientist stared steadily at the speaker for a moment before hespoke.
"If you will take off your mask, Dawson," he said finally, "I am sureyou will find it more comfortable. I was positive," he went on, as theother obeyed and showed the scarred, scowling face of the outlaw, "thatI made a mistake in sparing your life."
"I'll spare yours, too," retorted Dawson, "unless you make me kill you.I'm goin' to take the treasure an' light out. It would be much safer forme to kill you, but I won't unless I have to--just to show you howgrateful I am."
"I appreciate your consideration," returned the scientist, quietly; "butyou're too late. The treasure is not here."
"I know better," growled Dawson. "I've had you shadowed ever since yougot here. It's locked in that leather bag, which never leaves your sightday or night, an' I'm goin' to take it right now."
Suiting his action to his words, and still keeping his revolver leveledat the professor, the outlaw pulled toward him a big cowskin bag, which,as he said truly, the scientist had kept with him night and day eversince he purchased it at a shop in Lima the morning of his arrival.
"Dawson," returned Professor Ditson, earnestly. "I give you my word as agentleman that the treasure is now in the safe on the steamer whichleaves the day after to-morrow, and I hold the receipt of the steamshipcompany for it. Don't open that bag. There is nothing in it for youbut--death."
"I'll see about that," muttered Scar Dawson. "Don't move," he warned, asthe scientist started up from his bed. "I'll shoot if you make me."
Even as he spoke, he drew a knife from his belt and slit the leatherside of the bag its whole length with a quick slash, and started tothrust in his hand.
As he did so he gave a yell of terror, for out from the opening suddenlyappeared, wavering and hissing horribly, the ghastly head of the greatbushmaster which the scientist had carried and cared for all the wayfrom the Amazon basin. In another second, half its great length rearedthreateningly before the terrified outlaw. With one more yell, Dawsonthrew himself backward. There was a crash of broken glass, and by thetime Will and Jud and Joe and their host, aroused by the noise, hadreached the room, they found only Professor Ditson, coolly tying up thedamaged bag, into which, by some means known only to himself, he hadpersuaded the bushmaster to return.
To-day, in the world-famous gem collection of Big Jim Donegan, in theplace of honor, gleams and glows the great Emerald of the Incas. What hedid for those who won the treasure for him, and how that same party oftreasure-hunters traveled far to bring back to him that grim, beautiful,and historic stone of the Far East, the Red Diamond--well, that's stillanother story.
The Inca Emerald Page 11
