“I wonder what Sam will say?” asked Jimmie.
“He won’t know anything about it!” Carl declared.
“Oh, yes, he will!” asserted Jimmie, “he’ll be looking around before we’ve been absent ten minutes. Perhaps we’d ought to go back and tell him what we’ve found, and what we’re going to do.”
“Then he’d want to go with us,” Carl suggested, “and that would leave the savages to sneak into the temple whenever they find the nerve to do so, and also leave Pedro to work any old tricks he saw fit. Besides,” the boy went on, “we won’t be gone more than ten minutes.”
“You’re always making a sneak on somebody,” grinned Jimmie. “You had to go and climb up on our machine last night, and get mixed up in all this trouble. You’re always doing something of the kind!”
“I guess you’re glad I stuck around, ain’t you?” laughed Carl. “You’d ’a’ had a nice time in that den of lions without my gun, eh?”
“Well, get a move on!” laughed Jimmie. “And hang on to the walls as you go ahead. This floor looks like one of the chutes under the newspaper offices in New York. And hold your light straight ahead.”
The incline extended only a few yards. Arrived at the bottom, the boys estimated that the top of the six-foot passage was not more than a couple of yards from the surface of the earth. Much to their surprise they found the air in the place remarkably pure.
At the bottom of the incline the passage turned away to the north for a few paces, then struck out west. From this angle the boys could see little fingers of light which probably penetrated into the passage from crevices in the steps of the temple.
Gaining the front of the old structure, they saw that one of the stones just below the steps was hung on a rude though perfectly reliable hinge, and that a steel rod attached to it operated a mechanism which placed the slab entirely under the control of any one mounting the steps, if acquainted with the secret of the door.