With a sudden jerk the plane sprung upward. There was a terrific muffled roar from below and with barely a yard to spare we rose above the crater rim.
“Lord, you must have dropped that old bomb!” cried Hazen. “The concussion jarred the rudder free.”
I glanced over the side. Far beneath, a cloud of smoke and dust was drifting slowly aside exposing the aqueduct, broken, smashed and in ruins. From the opening in the mountain side a mighty stream of water was roaring in a rushing, tearing torrent. The bomb had landed squarely in the quarry. The aqueduct had fallen, the shock had let loose the gates of the lake and the whole vast crater reservoir was pouring in a mighty flood across the valley.
In a wide arc Hazen swung the plane about. “Poor devils!” he muttered as we soared above the doomed city.
Already the green plain was shimmering with the glint of water. We could see the frantic, frenzied people running and scrambling up their ladders. Again we wheeled and circled far above them and now only the roof tops of the houses were above the flood. Presently these too sank from sight and above the sunlit waters only the sacrificial stone remained.
“It’s all over!” exclaimed Hazen, and heading northward we sped beyond the encircling mountain sides.
Beneath us now was forest, and with a shudder I recognized it as that death-dealing, nightmare grove of cannibal trees. Fascinated I gazed down and suddenly from the mountain side behind us burst a frothing yellow torrent. The pressure of the flood had been too great. The overwhelming waters had forced the stone door of the tunnel by which I had entered that incredible valley. Before my wondering eyes the devastating deluge swept down the slope. I saw the monstrous trees shiver and sway and crash before the irresistible force. They gave way and like matchsticks went tossing, tumbling, bobbing down the hillside.
Higher and higher we rose. The water-filled crater was now but a silvery lake. The slope up which I had fought and raced from the ravenous, blood-sucking trees was bare, red earth scarred deep by the plunging stream that flowed over it. Far to the west gleamed the blue Pacific. Like a vast map Darien was spread below us. Northward we sped. Before us was civilization. Behind us death and destruction. The man-eating trees were a thing of the past. The lost city was lost forever.
(The End)
Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the December 1926 issue of Amazing Stories magazine.