But the signal came too late.
Out of the darkness, from the portion of the cave they had just left, rose a yell of defiance, followed by a flight of arrows and a volley of pistol shots. Running towards them, but still a good distance off, they could see a huddle of figures, dimly lighted by a few torches of wood, interspersed with lanterns similar to those used by the explorers. There was no time to make out who the enemy was. Evidently they planned to carry things before them by the swiftness of their attack, hoping to catch the cavemen off their guard. They went at it pell-mell, discharging their missiles as they ran—but with deadly enough aim nevertheless. One Indian of Anitoo’s party fell, struck down by an arrow. His comrades, enraged by this, formed a close line of battle around him, taking, as they did so, from the folds of their togas certain innocent looking objects, apparently long metal tubes, which they pointed at their assailants. The explorers failed to recognize these implements at first; then, as the Indians put them to their mouths, they realized that they were nothing more nor less than blowpipes, weapons used to-day only by the most primitive races. But the cavemen handled these weapons skillfully, pouring a goodly shower of darts into the turbulent throng advancing to meet them. As the hail of arrows and shooting of pistols continued, however, it was evident that the damage inflicted by the blowpipes was not enough to check the approach of the enemy, who exceeded the cavemen in numbers and were anxious to engage them at close quarters. This Anitoo determined to prevent. Shouting to his men, he urged them to retreat within the archway before which they were fighting, a command they refused to obey, infuriated as they were by the loss of several of their number. Their assailants, steadily pressing on, were soon near enough to give the cavemen the desired opportunity. Blowguns, bows and arrows were cast aside, and they jumped into a hand-to-hand fight, with short pikes and such weapons as chance provided.
It was then that the explorers seemed to reach the utmost limit of their misfortunes. Except for Andrew’s pocket-knife and the revolvers of Herran and Miranda, they were without weapons, and thus practically defenseless in the thick of a combat that at every moment gained in intensity. They were bewildered by the flashing lights of the torches, and kept getting in the way of Anitoo’s men at the most inopportune times. Naturally, General Herran, as the only one among them who had been in actual military service, did his best to keep the others in some sort of order; but his protests and commands, unintelligible to all but Miranda, went for very little. In vain he looked for some sheltered corner into which he could withdraw his little party; but the fierce fighting all around them shut off any such easy way of escape. There seemed to be nothing to do but stay where they were—and be shot, as Mrs. Quayle hysterically put it. And the shooting certainly increased enough in volume every moment to warrant that lady’s dismal view of the matter.
But Herran, although fighting in caves was quite out of his line, was not the kind of soldier to give up in despair—even with two women on his hands and three men who were quite as inexperienced and helpless in warfare as the women. The fiasco of Panama still rankled in his soul, and he resolved this time to let as few of the enemy escape him as possible. It was a serious business, but—at least he had a revolver, and he intended to use it.
Plunging ahead of the others into the thick of the mob that faced him, he shot right and left, and—according to Miranda, who watched the affair delightedly—every shot found its mark. This was all very well, and cheering enough to the explorers. It looked, indeed, for the moment, as if the tide of battle was about to be turned in their favor by the Hero of Panama. But then, all of a sudden, as was bound to happen, the General’s cartridges gave out, leaving him an animated sort of target in the midst of the men he had been attacking with such ferocity. There were cries of dismay from those who had been watching his brave exploit, a roar of rage from Miranda, who rushed forward, revolver in hand, to defend his old comrade. But Miranda was too late. A burly caveman, one of those who had borne the brunt of Herran’s onslaught, seeing the latter’s plight, whirled aloft a huge club that he carried and brought it down with fatal effect upon the General’s head. It was a Homeric blow, and the fall of the hero under it, sung in epic verse, would be described as the crashing to earth of a monarch of the forest, a bull, a lion, or something equally majestic and thunderous.
But the victor in this deadly encounter had no time to enjoy his triumph. Miranda, not able to ward off the terrible blow that he saw descending upon his friend, at least succeeded in inflicting mortal punishment upon the offending caveman who, before he could raise his club to his shoulder again, received the full contents of the Doctor’s revolver.
It was the first—and probably the last—time that Miranda could count himself a conqueror on the field of battle. His exultation, however, was short-lived. Not only had he to bewail the loss of Herran, a good friend and a brave leader, but the odds in the combat before him were going so unmistakably against Anitoo and his men, the fighting had become so widespread and desperate, that the safety of the explorers seemed, every moment, more and more a matter for miracles. As nothing further could be done with an empty revolver, Miranda shrugged his shoulders, threw away his now harmless weapon and, turning hastily to his companions, ordered them to put out their torches, fall flat upon their faces where they stood, and to stay motionless in that position until the fortunes of the battle were decided. This they all did, some with an almost inconceivable promptness—and to any one who might be looking on it must have appeared that the enemy had over-thrown this little group of people before them with one well directed discharge of their weapons.
In the kind of warfare that now was raging, Anitoo’s cavemen, on account of their lack of numbers and deficient training, were unquestionably getting the worst of it. Their white togas, and the flashing lights that they wore, made their escape difficult; obviously it would have fared badly for them if they had been left to fight their battle out alone. But Anitoo was taking no unnecessary chances. Fearing for his own men from the very first, he had dispatched a messenger into that unknown region of the cave lying beyond the Condor Gate. There was more, indeed, than the fate of his own men at stake. He knew that the majority of the enemy were of his own race, and that with them were associated two or three men from the outside world whose presence there, under such circumstances, proved the existence of a formidable conspiracy against that subterranean realm, of which he had spoken vaguely to the explorers, and to which he belonged. The cavemen he had with him, although brave enough, were undisciplined and without military experience. They could make but a poor defense against an attack directed by leaders trained in the rough school of the guerilla. All this Anitoo knew, and the reinforcements for which he had sent arrived barely in time to save his little party from being completely wiped out. But, fortunately for him, they did arrive in time. With a confused din of war cries and trumpetings, a flash of mysterious torches, waving of banners, brandishing of pipes and blowguns, a body of men, suddenly appearing out of the dim recesses of the cave, rushed, several hundred strong, upon the encircling throng of invaders. The result was decisive. The rebels, with victory almost in their grasp, were quickly surrounded, many of them killed, while the few who failed to make their escape were taken prisoners.
Among the latter was one who had played a leading part in the attack. He was unarmed, his clothes were torn, an ugly thrust from a pike had slashed across his face. But his bearing was undaunted; the dejection of the vanquished was lacking in the composure with which he regarded Anitoo, before whom his captors led him.
“Well?” he asked scornfully.