We examined it closely and came to the conclusion that it would be worth while to remove the stone. We worked at it for several days without making any perceptible impression.

It was too heavy and we could devise no appliance to assist us materially. Finally it occurred to me that we might remove a flag-stone of the floor, dig under the stone and compel it to drop from its place. We soon discovered, however, that it rested upon the flag-stone next to it. Not to abandon the project, we at last succeeded in removing the second flag-stone from the wall, which enabled us to excavate the earth from beneath the flag-stone next to the wall. This we accomplished after a great deal of hard work, for our only excavating tools consisted of sharpened and flattened pieces of wood. At last, however, the flag-stone settled into the the excavation and the stone in this way fell outward. To our great astonishment this was followed by a rush of air from the aperture. We did not, at first, know what to make of this, but we shortly agreed that we had found the entrance to an underground passage leading to the open air.

Indeed this idea seemed quite reasonable, for we had often read of such passages in connection with the strongholds of the early days; either as a means of offence or defence, or of escape.

Taking the two lamps I preceded Mr. Harborough into the passage, Marjorie bringing up the rear. From the first it was evident that the passage was not artificial, but a natural cavern. Indeed as we proceeded it proved to be a simple guano cave, the stalactites being grimy and the stalagmites buried beneath long years accumulations of guano. In its general character it did not differ materially from the cave which I had discovered on the east side of the mountain during my former sojourn. The ceiling of this one, however, was higher so that we were able to walk upright; and it had no windings. Proceeding a few rods we came to a second chamber, leading off at right angles; but the opening was so small that we would have had to crawl through it and we did not consider it worth while to enter it, at present, at least. The thought occurred to me that the passage connected this cavern with the one which I had previously discovered; for, as I thought the matter over, I believed that the two must run nearly parallel. Myriads of bats flitted about, almost flying against our faces, and several times nearly extinguishing our lamps. In a few minutes we came to a fair-sized chamber, nearly circular and perhaps a dozen feet in diameter; and as we entered it we were astonished to find that it was partially illumined by daylight. Stranger still, mounted on two huge wooden blocks were two brass cannon, pointing away from us.

"An ingenious fortification," remarked Mr. Harborough.

"A masked battery," said Marjorie.

We now examined the guns closely. They were covered with a greenish corrosion, and were, as I have said, brass. They were of exactly the same size, about four-inch, and on the breech of each was stamped the following, together with the arms of Spain: "Espana: 1512." We saw that we had reached the mouth of the cave, which was thickly filled with a mass of bushes and creepers. We resolved to clear away the obstruction at once, and I returned to the chamber for the axe. With it and our knives we soon cleared away the vegetable growths, and behold, we stood on the side of the mountain a few yards from the mouth of cave, overlooking the ocean to the eastward. The purpose of the guns was quite apparent. They commanded the approach to the mountain, and to an advancing enemy were utterly invisible, as a shelf of rock hid the entrance from below. This latter discovery did not promise to be of any special importance to us, it was most interesting. Our whole effort, now, was put forth toward transporting the gold to the cove on the west coast; and placing as many of the coins in each knapsack as we could each carry comfortably, we packed enough provisions to last at least two days, and set out. As we had done on the journey to the mountains, we followed the edge of the forest making a short detour, when about half way, to avoid a possible encounter with the wild pigs. Mr. Harborough and myself would have liked very much to risk an encounter with them, but the safety of Marjorie was our first consideration, and these animals were very fierce. So as we had grave doubts as to their desirability for food we decided to give them a wide berth. Nothing occurred to give excitement to the march and toward the end of the second day we reached the house in the cove, where we found everything entirely undisturbed. We immediately set to work to make several strong bags of sail-cloth, each being about two feet long and half as wide, in which to store the gold. This occupied us one full day, and after storing the gold we had brought, in a corner of the hut, burying it beneath the kitchen utensils, we took sufficient provisions to last us during the return march and set out. Numerous trips were made to and from the mountain which consumed several weeks. Meanwhile we had made an additional discovery, almost as important as the first. As we gradually removed the gold contained in the chest we saw that there was another chest beyond it. Like the first it fell to pieces on being moved. Beyond it was a solid wall of stone. But the second chest was not so heavy as the first, and it proved to be only about half filled with gold. The rest was occupied with rolls of manuscript, all of which fell to powder when exposed to the air, leaving not one scrap on which the faded writing was legible.

At last only what gold we could carry away on one more trip remained. During our march to and fro from the coast we had kept a sharp watch for the "wild man," as we called him, and Marjorie always kept very close to us while passing through that part of the forest.

But we saw no signs of him.

CHAPTER XXI.