“What’s up now, I wonder,” said Mr. Titus. “More men missing?”
“Quick! Come quick!” cried the Irishman. “Thim two giants is fightin’ in there, an’ they’ll tear th’ tunnel apart if we don’t stop ’em. It’s an awful fight! Awful!”
CHAPTER XXIII
A GREAT BLAST
Hardly comprehending what the Irish foreman had said, Tom Swift, the Titus brothers and Mr. Damon followed Tim Sullivan back into the tunnel. They had not gone far before they heard the murmur of many voices, and mingled with that were roarings like those of wild beasts.
“That’s thim!” cried Tim. “They’re chawin’ each other up!”
“Koku and that Indian giant fighting!” cried Tom. “What’s it all about?”
“Don’t ask me!” shouted Tim. “They’ve been on bad terms iver since they met.” This was true enough, for one giant was jealous of the other’s power, and they were continually trying feats of strength against one another. Probably this had culminated in a fight, Tom concluded.
“And it will be some fight!” mused the young inventor.
Hurrying on, Tom and his companions came upon a strange and not altogether pleasant sight. In an open place in the tunnel, where the lights were brightest, and in front of the rocky wall which offered a bar to further progress and which was soon to be blasted away, struggled the two giants.
With their arms locked about one another, they swayed this way and that—a struggle between two Titans. Of nearly the same height and bigness, it was a wrestling match such as had never been seen before. Had it been merely a friendly test of strength it would have been good to look upon. But it needed only a glance into the faces of either giant to show that it was a struggle in deadly earnest.
Back and forth they reeled over the rocky floor of the tunnel, bones and sinews cracking. One sought to throw the other, and first, as Koku would gain a slight advantage, his friends would call encouragement, while, when Lamos seemed about to triumph, the Indians favoring him would let out a yell of triumph.
For a few minutes Tom and his friends watched, fascinated. Then they saw Koku slip, while Lamos bent him farther toward the earth. The Indian giant raised his big fist, and Tom saw in it a rock, which the big man was about to bring down on Koku’s head.
“Look out, Koku!” yelled Tom.
Tom’s giant slid to one side only just in time, for the blow descended, catching him on his muscular shoulder where it only raised a bruise. And then Koku gathered himself for a mighty effort. His face flamed with rage at the unfair trick.
“Bless my bath sponge!” cried Mr. Damon. “This is awful!”
“They must stop!” said Job Titus. “We can’t have them fighting like this. It is bad for the others. If it were in fun it would be all right, but they are in deadly earnest. They must stop!”
“Koku, stop!” called Tom. “You must not fight any more!”
“No fight more!” gasped the giant, through his clenched teeth. “This end fight!”
With a mighty effort he broke the hold of Lamos’ arms. Then stooping suddenly he seized his rival about the middle, and with a tremendous heave, in which his muscles stood out in great bunches while his very bones seemed to crack, Koku raised Lamos high in the air. Up over his head he raised that mass of muscle, bone and flesh, squirming and wriggling, trying in vain to save itself.
Up and up Koku raised Lamos as the murmur of those watching grew to a shout of amazement and terror. Never had the like been seen in that land for generations. Up and up one giant raised the other. Then calling out something in his native tongue Koku hurled the other from him, clear across the tunnel and up against the opposite rocky wall. The murmuring died to frightened whispers as Lamos fell in a shapeless heap on the floor.
“Ah!” breathed Koku, stretching himself, and extending his brawny arms. “Fight all over, Master.”
“Yes, so it seems, Koku,” said Tom, solemnly, “but you have killed him. Shame on you!” and he spoke bitterly.
Job Titus had hurried over to the fallen giant.
“He isn’t dead,” he called, “but I guess he won’t wrestle or fight any more. He’s badly crippled.”
“And him no more try to blow up tunnel, either,” said Koku in his hoarse voice. “Me fix: him! No more him take powder, and make tunnel all bust.”
“What do you mean, Koku?” asked Tom. “Is that why you fought him? Did he try to wreck the tunnel?”
“So him done, Master. But Koku see—Koku stop. Then um fight.”
“Be jabbers an’ I wouldn’t wonder but what he was right!” cried Tim Sullivan, excitedly. “I did see that beggar.” and he pointed to Lamos, who was slowly crawling away, “at the chist where I kape th’ powder, but I thought nothin’ of it at th’ time. What did he try t’ do, Koku?”
Then the giant explained in his own language, Tom Swift translating, for Koku spoke English but indifferently well.
“Koku says,” rendered Torn, “that he saw Lamos trying to put a big charge of powder up in the place where the balanced rock fits in the secret opening of the tunnel roof. The charge was all ready to fire, and if the giant had set it off he might have brought down the roof of the tunnel and so choked it up that we’d have been months cleaning it out. Koku saw him and stopped him, and then the fight began. We only saw the end.”
“Bless my shoe string!” gasped Mr. Damon. “And a terrible end it was. Will Lamos die?”
“I don’t think so,” answered Job Titus. “But he will be a cripple for life. Not only would he have wrecked the tunnel, but he would have killed many of our men had he set off that blast. Koku saved them, though it seems too bad he had to fight to do it.”
An investigation showed that Koku spoke truly. The charge, all ready to set off, was found where he had knocked it from the hand of Lamos. And so Tom’s giant saved the day. Lamos was sent back to his own village, a broken and humbled giant. And to this day, in that part of Peru, the great struggle between Koku and Lamos is spoken of with awe where Indians gather about their council fires, and they tell their children of the Titanic fight.
“It was part of the plot,” said Job Titus when the usual blast had been set off that day, with not very good results. “This giant was sent to us by our rivals. They wanted him to hamper our work, for they see we have a chance to finish on time. I think that foreman, Serato, is in the plot. He brought Lamos here. We’ll fire him!”
This was done, though the Indian protested his innocence. But he could not be trusted.
“We can’t take any chances,” said Job Titus. “Our time is too nearly up. In fact I’m afraid we won’t finish on time as it is. There is too much of that hard rock to cut through.”
“There’s only one thing to do,” said Tom, after an investigation. “As you say, there is more of that hard rock than we calculated on. To try to blast and take it out in the ordinary way will be useless. We must try desperate means.”
“What is that?” asked Walter Titus.
“We must set off the biggest blast we can with safety. We’ll bore a lot of extra holes, and put in double charges of the explosive. I’ll add some ingredients to it that will make it stronger. It’s our last chance. Either we’ll blow the tunnel all to pieces, or we’ll loosen enough rock to make sufficient progress so we can finish on time. What do you say? Shall we take the chance?”
The Titus brothers looked at one another. Failure stared them in the face. Unless they completed the tunnel very soon they would lose all the money they had sunk in it.
“Take the chance!” exclaimed Job. “It’s sink or swim anyhow. Set off the big blast, Tom.”
“All right. We’ll get ready for it as soon as we can.”
That day preparations were made for setting off a great charge of the powerful explosive. The work was hurried as fast as was consistent with safety, but even then progress was rather slow. Precautions had to be taken, and the guards about the tunnel were doubled. For it was feared that some word of what was about t
o be done would reach the rival firm, who might try desperate means to prevent the completion of the work.
There was plenty of the explosive on hand, for Mr. Swift had sent Tom a large shipment. All this while no word had come from Mr. Nestor, and Tom was beginning to think that his prospective father-in-law was very angry with him. Nor had Mary written.
Professor Bumper came and went as he pleased, but his quest was regarded as hopeless now. Tom and his friends had little time for the bald-headed scientist, for they were too much interested in the success of the big blast.
“Well, we’ll set her off tomorrow,” Tom said one night, after a hard day’s work. “The rocky wall is honeycombed with explosive. If all goes well we ought to bring down enough rock to keep the gangs busy night and day.”
Everything was in readiness. What would the morrow bring—success or failure?
CHAPTER XXIV
THE HIDDEN CITY
Gathered beyond the mouth of the tunnel, far enough away so that the wind of the great blast would not bowl them over like ten pins, stood Tom Swift and his friends. In his hand Tom held the battery box, the setting of the switch in which would complete the electrical circuit and set off the hundreds of pounds of explosive buried deep in the hard rock.
“Are all the men out?” asked the young inventor of Tim Sullivan, who had charge of this important matter. Tim was in sole charge as foreman now, having picked up enough of the Indian language to get along without an interpreter.
“All out, sor,” Tim responded. “Yez kin fire whin ready, Mr. Swift.”
It was a portentous moment. No wonder Tom Swift hesitated. In a sense he and his friends, the contractors, had staked their all on a single throw. If this blast failed it was not likely that another would succeed, even if there should be time to prepare one.
The time limit had almost expired, and there was still a half mile of hard rock between the last heading and the farther end of the big tunnel. If the blast succeeded enough rock might be brought down to enable the work to go on, by using a night and day shift of men. Then, too, there was the chance that the hard strata of rock would come to an end and softer stone, or easily-dug dirt, be encountered.
“Well, we may as well have it over with,” said Tom in a low voice. Every one was very quiet—tensely quiet.
The young inventor looked up to see Professor Bumper observing him.
“Why, Professor!” Tom exclaimed, “I thought you had gone off to the mountains again, looking for the lost city.”
“I am going, Tom, very soon. I thought I would stop and see the effect of your big blast. This is my last trip. If I do not find the hidden city of Pelone this time, I am going to give up.”
“Give up!” cried Mr. Damon. “Bless my fountain pen!”
“Oh, not altogether,” went on the bald-headed scientist. “I mean I will give up searching in this part of Peru, and go elsewhere. But I will never completely give up the search, for I am sure the hidden city exists somewhere under these mountains,” and he looked off toward the snow-covered peaks of the Andes.
Tom looked at the battery box. He drew a long breath, and said:
“Here she goes!”
There was a contraction of his hand as he pressed the switch over, and then, for perhaps a half second, nothing happened. Just for an instant Tom feared something had gone wrong that the electric current had failed, or that the wires had become disconnected—perhaps through some action of the plotting rivals.
And then, gently at first, but with increasing intensity, the solid ground on which they were all standing seemed to rock and sway, to heave itself up, and then sink down.
“Bless my—” began Mr. Damon, but he got no further, for a mighty gust of wind swept out of the tunnel, and blew off his hat. That gust was but a gentle breeze, though, compared to what followed. For there came such a rush of air that it almost blew over those standing near the opening of the great shaft driven under the mountain. There was a roar as of Niagara, a howling as in the Cave of the Winds, and they all bent to the blast.
Then followed a dull, rumbling roar, not as loud as might have been expected, but awful in its intensity. Deep down under the very foundations of the earth it seemed to rumble.
“Run! Run back!” cried Tom Swift. “There’s a back-draft and the powder gas is poisonous. Stoop down and run back!”
They understood what he meant. The vapor from the powder was deadly if breathed in a confined space. Even in the open it gave one a terrible headache. And Tom could see floating out of the tunnel the first wisps of smoke from the fired explosive. It was lighter than air, and would rise. Hence the necessity, as in a smoke-filled room, of keeping low down where the air is purer.
They all rushed back, stooping low. Mr. Damon stumbled and fell, but Koku picked him up and, tucking him under one arm, as he might have done a child, the giant followed Tom to a place of safety.
“Well, Tom, it went off all right,” said Mr. Job Titus, as they stood among the shacks of the workmen and watched the smoke pouring out of the tunnel mouth.
“Yes, it went off. But did it do the work? That’s what we’ve got to find out.”
They waited impatiently for the deadly vapor to clear out of the tunnel. It was more than an hour before they dared venture in, and then it was with smarting eyes and puckered throats. But the atmosphere was quickly clearing.
“Switch on the lights,” cried Tom to Tim, for the illuminating current had been cut off when the blast was fired. “Let’s see what we’ve brought down.”
Following the eager young inventor came the contractors, some of the white workers, Mr. Damon and Professor Bumper. The little scientist said he would like to see the effect of the big blast.
Along they stumbled over pieces of rock, large and small.
“Some force to it,” observed Job Titus, as he observed pieces of rock close to the mouth of the tunnel. “If it only exerted the force the other way, against the face of the rock, as well as back this way, we’ll be all right.”
“The greater force was in the opposite direction,” Tom said.
A big search-light had been got ready to flash on the place where the blast had been set off. This was to enable them to see how much rock had been torn away. And, as they reached the place where the flint-like wall had been, they saw a strange sight.
“Bless my strawberry short-cake!” gasped Mr. Damon. “What a hole!”
“It is a hole,” admitted Tom, in a low voice. “A bigger hole than I dared hope for.”
For a great cave, seemingly, had been blown in the face of the rock wall that had hindered the progress of the tunnel. A great black void confronted them.
“Shift the light over this way,” called Tom to Walter Titus, who was operating it. “I can’t see anything.”
The great beam of light flashed into the void, and then a murmur of awe came from every throat.
For there, revealed in the powerful electrical rays, was what seemed to be a long tunnel, high and wide, as smooth as a paved street. And on either side of it were what appeared to be buildings, some low, others taller. And, branching off from the main tunnel, or street, were other passages, also lined with buildings, some of which had crumbled to ruins.
“Bless my dictionary!” cried Mr. Damon. “What is it?”
Professor Bumper had crawled forward over the mass of broken rock. He gazed as if fascinated at what the searchlight showed, and then he cried:
“I have found it! I have found it! The hidden city of Pelone!”
CHAPTER XXV
SUCCESS
Had it not been for Tom Swift, the excited professor would have rushed pellmell over the jagged pile of rocks into the great cave which had been opened by the blast, the cave in which the scientist declared was the lost city for which he had been searching. But the young inventor grasped Mr. Bumper by the arm.
“Better wait a bit,” Tom suggested. “There may be powder gas in there. Some of it must have blown forward.”
�
�I don’t care!” excitedly cried the professor. “That is the hidden city! I’m sure of it! I have found it at last! I must go in and examine it!”
“There’ll be plenty of time,” said Tom. “It isn’t going to run away. Wait until I make a test Tim, hand me one of those torches.”
Some torches of a very inflammable wood were used to test for the presence of the deadly smoke-gas. Lighting one of these, Tom tossed it into the big excavation.
It fell to the stone floor—to the stone street to be more exact—and, flaring up brightly, further revealed the rows of houses as they stood, silent and uninhabited.
“It’s all right,” Tom announced. “There’s no danger so long as the torch burns. You can go on, Professor.”
And Professor Bumper rushed forward, scrambling over the pile of blasted rock, followed by Tom and the others. Some of the debris from the explosion had fallen into the cave, and was scattered for some distance along the main street of what had been Pelone. But beyond that the way was clear.
“Yes, it is Pelone,” cried Professor Bumper. “See!”
He pointed to inscriptions in queer characters over the doorway of some of the houses, but he alone could read them.
“I have found Pelone!” he kept repeating over and over again.
And that is just what had happened. That last great blast Tom Swift had set off had broken down the rock wall that hid the lost city from view. There it was, buried deep down under the mountain, where it had been covered from sight ages ago by some mighty earthquake or landslide; perhaps both. And the earth and rocks had fallen over the main portion of the city of Pelone in such a way—in such an arch formation—that the greater part of it was preserved from the pressure of the mountain above it.
The outlying portions were crushed into dust by the awful pressure of the mountain—millions of tons of stone—but where the natural arch had formed the weight was kept off the buildings, most of which were as perfect as they had been before the cataclysm came.
The buildings were of stone block construction, mostly only one story in height, though some were two. They were simply made, somewhat after the fashion of the Aztecs. A look into some of them by the light of portable electric lamps showed that the houses were furnished with some degree of taste and luxury. There were traces of an ancient civilization.
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