The Boy Aviators in Nicaragua; or, In League with the Insurgents by John Henry Goldfrap
CHAPTER XV.
THE BOYS DISCOVER THE TOLTEC’S “SESAME.”
They arrived at camp as day was breaking and found everything just asthey had left it. The first thing to be done was to get out the medicinechest and bandage Billy’s wounded head after antiseptics had beenapplied to it. It was only a flesh wound but the weapon,—most probablythe butt-end of a rifle,—with which he had been struck, had inflicted aglancing cut that was painful. After a hasty breakfast the boys turnedin and slept like tops till late afternoon.
The remainder of the day was spent in describing to the astonishedBilly, who soon recovered his usual cheerful attitude toward life, thequeer incident of the bell-ringer and the carved quesal on what the boyshad already termed Treasure Cliff.
“Yes, but,” objected Billy, “any one might have amused themselves bycarving it there,—cave-dwellers or something,—of course,”—he hurriedon—“I don’t know much about these things, but it looks to me like awaste of time to go digging round there on a chance.”
“I guess you don’t know much about it, Billy,” smiled Frank, “the quesalwas a sacred symbol of the Toltec priests and it would have been as muchas an ordinary citizen’s life was worth to have carried it or drawn itanywhere, at any time.”
“That’s so,” agreed Billy, “as you say, Frank, I don’t know much aboutthese things. I’m better at digging up stories than treasure. What doyou propose to do?”
“Well,” said Frank, “my idea was this. We will overhaul an outfitto-night, and to-morrow morning we will start out for the foot of thecliff. We will mark out a space there extending in a semi-circle ofwhich the center will be a point directly below the quesal’s beak andsee what we can turn up. We three should be able to do a good bit ofearth turning in a day, and if we find nothing we can take a fly back toLa Merced. We are due there to-morrow night anyway, and if we don’t showup father will be worried.”
“A bully program,” cried Billy.
“With a bully lot of hard work involved,” retorted Frank.
Before they turned in that night the boys had selected the outfit theywould take. Frank and Harry, of course, carried their pocket electrictorches, rifles, revolvers and canteens. The blankets and suchprovisions as they thought it necessary to take along were done up inneat rolls. Billy was nominated the axe-man of the party, and Frank andHarry took the spade and the pick. Altogether when they set out as soonas it was light enough to see they were a formidable-looking party ofpioneers.
They arrived at the foot of the cliff without adventure and set to workclearing away the dense undergrowth which matted the ground at the footof the rocky wall. Frank had first driven a peg into the ground at apoint as nearly in a plumb line with the down pointing beak of thequesal as he could strike. He attached to this a bit of cord aboutfifteen feet in length and with this improvised compass marked out asemi-circle in which to carry on operations.
The boys’ watches indicated noon by the time they had the brush clearedand three very tired but excited lads sat down to a hasty lunch. Theyknew that the preliminary work had now been done and if they were on theeve of any important discovery that the afternoon’s work would probablydecide it.
Lunch disposed of they set to work with a will on breaking up theground. In this the axe and the pick wielded by Billy and Frank came inuseful. They pulverized the ground—which in some places was as tough ashard-pan—so that it was easy for Harry to follow along with the shoveland spade up great clods of it. The hands of all three were soon coveredwith blisters and Billy, who had not yet fully recovered from his tryingexperiences, was fain, before the work had progressed very far, to throwdown his axe with the confession:
“Boys, I’m all in.”
He was directed to sit in the shade and watch the work which he did in arather shamefaced way although he had endured the struggle againstexhaustion pluckily enough while his strength held out.
Frank’s semi-circle had been pretty well dug over by the time that thegreat clouds of nesting parrots from the feeding-grounds in the valleybegan to circle with harsh cries above the trees on the mountain-sidewhich formed their dormitory. Harry threw down his shovel with a cry ofdisgust.
“Hadn’t we better call it a day, Frank,” he said, “we have dug up enoughearth for a subway excavation and haven’t discovered a clue. I guessthat quesal of yours was put up there for a joke—it looks like it’s beenone on us all right.”
But Frank was not discouraged so easily.
“Half-an-hour more and then we quit,” he agreed, “but let’s give it onemore try.”
“On that condition all right,” replied Harry, “but I’m a union man, whenit comes to this sort of a job. Eight hours is enough for me, thankyou.”
For perhaps twenty minutes more the boys dug in silence when suddenlyFrank uttered a sharp exclamation.
His pick had struck something that gave out a ringing sound!
When he announced the news in a voice choked by excitement there was nomore lethargy on Harry’s part—even Billy forgot his aching head and sorehands and went to work with a will. In fifteen minutes or so they haduncovered a large flat stone with a ring of some kind of dull metalimbedded in the center. With a loud cheer all three boys, their fatigueentirely forgotten, joined hands and executed a wild sort of war-danceround their excavation, which was perhaps three feet or so deep.
When they had danced their enthusiasm out the practical Frank somewhatdashed the hopes of the others, after carefully examining the stone, bysaying quietly:
“It looks good, boys; but we’ve got to raise it.”
Here was indeed a poser. They all three tugged at the ring till theiralready sore hands were almost raw but not even a tremor ran through thestone which was about four feet long by three wide.
“We have no means of telling how thick it is,” said Frank, in adiscouraged tone, “it may weigh ten tons for all we know.”
“We might dynamite it,” suggested Billy.
“Yes, and advertise our find to the whole country,” retorted Harry.
“I wonder what’s under it,” surmised Billy.
“Lemons perhaps,” mischievously laughed Harry.
While the other two were talking the energetic Frank had been at work.Jumping into the hole he had carefully scraped round the edge of thestone like a man trying to get a waxed cork out of a bottle.
The edges of the stone fitted so closely to the live-rock surroundingit, however, that his hope of finding a crack, in which they could put alever and pry up the rock, was blasted. There seemed to be no way ofsolving the puzzling problem. All the treasures of Golconda might havebeen concealed under the mighty rock and the boys would have no morechance of getting at them than if they had been securely locked in thecenter of the earth.
It was not Frank’s nature to give anything up without a struggle tosolve it, however, and he suggested one more try.
“Maybe it is balanced in some way,” he suggested.
“A good idea,” commented Harry. “What’s the matter with our all gettingon one side of it and jumping together when one of us says, ‘Go.’”
“We might try it,” said Frank dubiously, “but I’m skeptical that we willobtain any results.”
“We’ll get a lot of exercise anyhow,” chimed in Billy.
“As if we hadn’t had enough to-day,” indignantly cried Harry.
Laughing—despite their anxiety—at the ridiculous sight they must presentthe three boys placed their arms on each other’s shoulders and solemnlypranced up and down on the rock first at one end and then at the other.Then they tried jumping on its sides. The great boulder didn’t evenquiver. It was as solid under their feet as the face of the cliffitself.
“Looks like we’ll have to give it up,” said Frank at last in a disgustedtone.
“Yes, I don’t see what else we can try,” Harry agreed, “whoever stowedthat rock away meant that no one but himself should ever get it upagain.”
“Maybe he had some magic words he chanted over it like:
“Eeny, meeny, minney mo,” suggested Harry, solemnly chanting the mysticrhyme, as if he half expected to see the rock swing back in response.
“Yes—or open sesame,—like in the Arabian Nights,” scornfully remarkedBilly. “Come on, let’s quit it. It will be dark before we get back tocamp if we don’t hurry.”
“We certainly have had a fine day’s work for nothing. Just to think thatwe’ve got to pack all this stuff back to camp with us after all insteadof using it to explore the Toltec Caves of Treasure Cliff,” cried Harry,speaking the last words in a highly melodramatic tone.
“You’re a fine old fraud,” he yelled at the unmoved quesal,—looking downfrom the cliff, with its sunken eye, as it had gazed for almostuncounted centuries. “If I could get up there I’d fix you so as youwouldn’t fool anyone else. I’ll just take a chuck at you for luckanyway. That old unwinking orb of yours irritates me.”
As he spoke the lad stooped down and selected a large flat stone andflung it full at the carved figure with the down-pointing beak.
“Bang in the eye;” he shouted, “give me a walking-stick, Mr. Showman,I”—
Whatever he was going to say was cut short by a wild shout from Frank.
“Good lord!” he yelled, “Look there!”
Billy and Frank followed his finger as he stood pointing on the edge ofthe excavation.
Slowly; as if some invisible hand was pushing it up ondelicately-adjusted hinges—the big rock was swinging open from its sleepof the ages!
As it yawned wider and wider the first steps of a rough flight ofstairs,—apparently cut out of the living rock,—were disclosed. From theaperture, as it gaped wider, rushed out a breath of air so fetid andpoisonous that the boys grew sick and faint under its baleful odor.