“A landslide!” cried Mr. Parker. “That is the landslide which I predicted! The lightning bolt has split Phantom Mountain!”
CHAPTER XVI
THE VAST CAVERN
For a time the roiling, slipping, sliding and tumbling of the mass of earth and stones, down the side of the mountain, effectually drowned all other sounds. Even the thunder was stilled, and though Tom and his companions called to one another in terror, their voices could not rise above that terrific tumult.
Finally, when they found that the direction of the slide was away from their tent, and that they were not likely to be engulfed, they grew more calm.
Gradually the noise subsided. The great boulders had rolled to the bottom of the valley, and now only a mass of earth and stones was sliding down. Even this stopped in about five minutes, and, as though satisfied with what it had done, the electrical storm passed. Not a drop of rain had fallen.
“Bless my shirt studs!” exclaimed Mr. Damon, who was the first to speak after the din had quieted. “Bless my soul! But that was awful!”
“It was just what I expected,” said Mr. Parker, calmly. “I knew, from my observations, that we were in a region where landslides and terrific electrical storms may be expected at any time. I fully looked for this.”
“Well,” remarked Mr. Jenks, rather sarcastically, “I hope it came up to your expectations, Mr. Parker.”
“Oh, fully,” was the answer, “though I wish it could have happened in daylight, so that I could better have observed certain phenomena regarding the landslide. They are very interesting.”
“At a distance,” admitted Tom, with a laugh of relief. “Well, I’m glad it’s over, though we’ll have to wait until morning to see what damage has been done. Lucky we weren’t struck by lightning. I never saw such bolts!”
“Me, either!” declared Mr. Damon. “This mountain seems to attract them.”
“It is like a magnet,” said Mr. Parker. “I think I shall be able to make some fine observations here.”
“If we live through it,” murmured Mr. Jenks.
They watched the play of lightning about a distant bank of clouds, but the storm was now far away, only a faint rumbling of thunder being heard.
“I’m wondering what happened to the phantom,” said Tom, after a pause. “Seems to me he was right in that track of the storm.”
“Do you think it was a ‘he’?” asked Mr. Jenks.
“I think we’ll find that it’s some sort of a man,” answered the young inventor. “We may find out very soon, now. I’ve changed my theory about the ghost being reflections of light.”
“How’s that?” Mr. Damon wanted to know.
“Well, I think we are on the side of Phantom Mountain where the diamond cave is,” went on the lad. “The fact that the phantom appeared here, soon after we arrived, shows that the men kept close track of our movements. It also shows, I think, that the phantom did not have to travel far to be on the spot, whereas we had to make quite a trip to get around the base of the mountain. I think the cave is up there,” and Tom pointed toward the spot where the weird figure had been last seen, before the storm drove it back.
“There may be two phantoms,” suggested Mr. Jenks. “They may keep one on this side of the mountain, and one on the other, to warn intruders away.
“It’s possible,” admitted Tom. “Well, we’ll see how things look in the morning, when we’ll take up our march again, and go up the mountain. We’ll reach the top, if possible, which we couldn’t do from the other side, as it was too steep.”
“I hope we shall be able to go forward in the morning,” came from Mr. Jenks.
“What do you mean?” asked the lad, struck by a peculiar significance in the diamond man’s tones.
“Why, that landslide may have opened a great gully in the side of Phantom Mountain, which will prevent us from passing. It was a terrific lot of earth and stones that slid away,” answered Mr. Jenks.
“It certainly was,” agreed Mr. Parker. “I would not be surprised if the mountain was half destroyed, and it may be that the diamond cave no longer exists.”
“Not very cheerful, to say the least,” murmured Mr. Jenks to Tom, and, as it was getting quite chilly, following the storm, they went inside the tent.
Tom could hardly wait for daylight, to get up and see what havoc the landslide had wrought. As soon as the first faint flush of dawn showed over the eastern peaks, he hurried from the tent. Mr. Damon heard him arise, and followed.
A curious scene met their eyes. All about were great rocks rent and torn by the awful power of the lightning. The fronts of the stone cliffs were scarred and burned by the electrical fire, and fantastic markings, grotesque faces, and leering animals seemed to have been drawn by some gigantic artist who used a bolt from heaven for his brush.
But the eyes of Tom and Mr. Damon took all this in at a glance, and then their gaze went forward to where the avalanche had torn away a great part of the mountain.
“Whew! I should say it was a landslide!” cried Tom.
“Bless my wishbone, yes!” agreed Mr. Damon.
Below them, in the valley, lay piled immense masses of earth and stones. Boulders were heaped up on boulders, and rocks upon rocks, being tossed about in heaps, strung about in long ridges, and swirled about in curves, as though some cyclone had toyed with them after the lightning flash had tossed them there.
“But the mountain isn’t half gone,” said Tom, as his eyes took in what was left of the phantom berg. “I guess it will take a few more bolts like that one, to put this hill out of business.”
Though the landslide had been a great one, the larger part of the mountain still stood. An immense slice had been taken from one side, but the summit was untouched.
“And there’s where the diamond cave is!” cried Tom, pointing to it.
“I think so myself,” agreed Mr. Jenks, who came from the tent at that moment, and joined the lad and Mr. Damon. “I think we shall find the cave somewhere up there. We must start for it, as soon as we have eaten, and we may reach it by night.”
The three stood gazing up toward the summit of the great mountain. Suddenly, as the sun rose higher in the heavens, it sent a shaft of rosy light on the face of the berg that had been scarred by the landslide. Tom Swift uttered an exclamation, and pointed at something.
“See!” he cried. “Look where the trail is—the trail down which the phantom must have come. It is on the edge of a cliff now!”
They looked, and saw that this was so. The increasing light had just revealed it to them. When the lightning bolt had torn away a great portion of the mountain it had cut sheer down for a great depth and when the earth and stones fell away they left a narrow pathway, winding around the mountain, but so near the edge of a great chasm, that there was room but for one person at a time to walk on that footway. The uncertain trail up Phantom Mountain had all but been destroyed.
“The way up to the peak is by that path, now,” spoke Tom, in a low voice.
“Bless my soul!” cried Mr. Damon. “It’s as much as a man’s life is worth to attempt it. If he got dizzy, he’d topple over, and fall a thousand feet. Dare we risk it?”
“It’s the only way to get up,” went on Tom. “It’s either that way, or not at all. We’ve tried the other side without success. We must go up this way—or turn back.”
“Then we’ll go up!” cried Mr. Jenks. “It may not be as dangerous as it looks from here.”
But it was even more dangerous than it appeared, when they went part way up it after a hasty breakfast. The trail was a mere ledge of rock now, and in some places, to get around a projecting edge of the mountain, they had to stand with their backs to the dizzy depths at their feet, and with both arms outstretched work their way around to where the trail was wider.
“Shall we risk it?” asked Tom, when they had tried the way, and found it so dangerous. “We can’t take anything with us—even our guns, for we couldn’t carry them, and if we reach the month of the cav
e, and find those men there—”
He paused significantly. The adventurers looked at one another. The search for the diamond makers was becoming more and more dangerous.
“I say let’s go on!” decided Mr. Damon, suddenly. “We want to locate that cave, first of all. Perhaps, when we do find it, we may see some easier way of getting to it than this. And if those diamond makers do attack us—well, I don’t believe they’ll shoot defenseless men, and they may listen to reason, and give Mr. Jenks his rights—tell him how to make diamonds in return for the money he gave them.”
“I don’t believe those scoundrels will listen to reason,” replied the diamond man, “but I agree with Mr. Damon that we ought to go on. We may find some other means of reaching the cave—if we can discover it, and we’ll take a chance with the men.”
“Forward it is, then!” cried Tom. “I have a revolver, and I can supply one of you gentlemen with another. They may come in useful in an emergency. Let’s go back to camp, take a little lunch in our pockets, and try to scale the mountain.”
They were soon on their way up the dizzy path once more, and, as they advanced, they found it growing more and more dangerous. In some places they found it almost impossible to get around certain corners, where there was barely room for their feet. As Tom remarked grimly, a fat man never could have done it. Fortunately they were all comparatively thin, for their hard work, and not too abundant food, since they had left the airship, had reduced their weight.
Up and up they went, higher and higher, sometimes finding the path wide enough for two to walk abreast, and again seeing it narrow almost to a ribbon. They hardly dared look down into the chasm at their left—a chasm filled, in part, with the rocks and boulders tossed into it by the lightning bolt.
Tom was in the lead, and had just made a dangerous turn around a shoulder of rock—one of those places where he had to extend both arms, and fairly hug the cliff before he could get around.
But, when he had made it, and found himself on a broad pathway, cut in the living rock, he gave a great shout—a shout that caused his companions to hasten to his side. They found the young inventor pointing to a clump of bushes and small trees.
But it was not the shrubbery that Tom desired to call to their attention. They saw that in an instant, for, dimly seen through the leaves, was something black, and, as they looked more closely, they saw that it was a great hole in the side of the mountain—a vast cavern, opening like a tunnel.
“The cave! The cave!” cried Tom. “The diamond makers’ cave!”
Hardly had he spoken than two men, each one carrying a gun, showed themselves in the mouth of the cavern, and, instant later they both ran toward the little party of adventurers.
CHAPTER XVII
THE PHANTOM CAPTURED
Surprise held Tom and his friends almost spellbound for the moment. The young inventor’s hand went toward the pocket where he carried his revolver. Mr. Jenks, who had the only other weapon, sought to draw it, but he was stopped by a gesture of one of the two men with guns.
“Hold on, strangers!” the man cried. “I know what you’re up to! Better not try to draw anything—it might not be healthy. Now, then, who are you, and what do you want?”
The question came rather as a surprise, at least to Tom and Mr. Jenks. They had taken it for granted that these men—if they were the diamond makers—would know Mr. Jenks, and guess at his errand in coming back to Phantom Mountain. But, it seemed, that they took them all for casual strangers.
No one answered for a moment. Tom caught the eye of Mr. Jenks, and there was a look of hope in it. If ever there was a time for strategy, it was now. Evidently Munson, the stowaway on the airship, had not yet been able to send a warning to his confederates. And neither of the two men recognized Mr. Jenks as the man who had been defrauded of his rights. It might be possible to conceal the real object of the adventurers until they had time to formulate a plan of action.
“Well,” exclaimed the man with the gun, impatiently, “I ask you folks a question. What do you want?”
Fortunately, neither Mr. Damon nor Mr. Parker replied. The former because he deferred to Tom and Mr. Jenks, and the scientist because he was busy inspecting some curious rocks he picked up. As it turned out this was the luckiest thing he could have done. It lent color to what Mr. Jenks said a moment later.
“What are you doing up here?” demanded the man again. “Don’t you know this is private property?”
“We—we were just looking around,” answered Mr. Jenks, which was true enough; as far as it went.
“Prospecting,” added Tom.
“After gold?” demanded the second man, suspiciously.
“We’d be glad to find some,” retorted the lad. At that moment Mr. Parker began breaking off bits of rock with a small geologist’s hammer which he carried. The men with the guns looked at him.
“So you think you’ll find gold up here?” asked the one who had first spoken.
“Is there any?” inquired Tom, trying to make his voice sound eager.
“Nary a bit, strangers,” was the answer, and the two men laughed heartily. “Now, we don’t want to seem harsh,” went on the man who seemed to be the spokesman, “but you’d better get away from here. This is private ground, and dangerous too—how’d you ever get up the trail—we heard it was destroyed.”
“There is still a narrow path,” said Mr. Jenks. “We came up that—the lightning and landslide haven’t left much of it, though.”
Mr. Parker looked quickly up from the rocks at which he was tapping with his small hammer. “You have terrific lightning up here,” he said. “I am much interested in it, from a scientific standpoint. I predict that some day the entire mountain will be destroyed by a blast from the sky.”
“I hope it won’t be right away,” spoke one of the men. “Now I guess you folks had better be leaving while there’s a path left to go down by.”
“Might I ask,” broke in Mr. Parker, as calmly as though he was lecturing to a class of students, “might I ask if you have noticed any peculiar effect of the lightning up here on the summit of the mountain? Does it fuse and melt rocks, so to speak?”
“What’s that?” cried the spokesman, with a sudden flash of anger. The two men looked at each other.
“I wanted to know, merely for scientific reasons, whether the lightning up here ever melted rocks?” repeated Mr. Jenks.
“Well, whether it’s for scientific reasons or for any other, I’m not going to answer you!” snapped the man. “It’s none of your affair what the lightning does up here. Now you’d all better ‘vamoose’—clear out!”
“All right—we’ll go,” said Tom, quickly, at the same time motioning to Mr. Jenks to agree with him. The eyes of the young inventor were roving about. He saw what looked like a second trail, leading down the mountain, from the far side of the cave. He was convinced now that there was another way to get to it. Possibly they might find it. At any rate nothing more could be done now. They must go back, for the cavern was too well guarded to attempt to enter it by force—at least just yet.
“Yes, we’ll go back,” assented Mr. Jenks.
Mr. Parker was tapping away at the rocks. He looked toward the black mouth of the big cave. On what corresponded to the roof of it, some distance back from the entrance, he saw a slender metal rod sticking up into the air.
“May I ask if that’s a lightning rod?” he inquired innocently. “If it is, I should like to ask about its action in a mountain that is so impregnated with iron ore.
“You may ask until you get tired!” cried the spokesman, again showing unreasoning anger, “but you’ll get no answer from us. Now get away from here before we do something desperate. You’re on private ground and you’re not wanted. Clear out while you have the chance.”
There was no help for it. Slowly our friends turned and began to go down the dangerous trail. They were soon out of sight of the two men who stood before the cave, with their guns ready, but neither Tom nor any of his
companions spoke for some time.
When they had rounded one of the most dangerous turns the young inventor sat down to rest, an example followed by the others.
“Well,” asked Tom, “do you think those are some of the diamond makers, Mr. Jenks?”
“I certainly do, though I never saw those two men before. If I could once get inside the cave, I could tell whether or not it was the one where I was practically held a prisoner. But I’m sure it is. I know some of the men used to go off every day with guns, and not come back until night. I have no doubt they were on guard, just as these two are. And, also, I think I heard them speak of a second entrance to the cavern. The one we just saw may not be the main one, through which I was taken.”
“I believe we are on the right track,” ventured Mr. Damon, “but we will either have to go up there after dark, which will be risky, on account of the narrow trail, or else we will have to find some other path.”
“The last would be better,” spoke Tom.
“That rod of metal sticking up on top of the cave interested me,” said the scientist. “Did you hear anything of that when you were here before, Mr. Jenks?”
“No. Probably that is only a lightning rod, or it may be a staff for a signal flag. But what surprises me is that those men didn’t suspect that we were seeking to discover their secret. They took us for ordinary prospectors.”
“So much the better,” remarked Tom. “We have a chance now of getting inside that cave. But we will have to go back to camp, and make other plans. And we must hurry, or it will be dark before we get there.”
They hastened their steps, pausing only briefly to eat some of the lunch they had brought along, and to drink from a spring that bubbled from the side of the mountain. It was getting dusk when they got back to their tent. They found nothing disturbed.
“I wonder if we’ll see that phantom again tonight?” ventured Tom, as they were sitting about the campfire a little later.
The Tom Swift Megapack Page 85
