“No, we hadn’t,” said Chris, who was half up the shaft. “Don’t speak yet, Ned. Come on; it’s quite easy.”
Ned followed, and came in for plenty of dry dust and chips as Chris climbed on, to find himself directly after in a cell-like chamber, evidently cut out of the solid rock.
“Ahoy! Where are you, boys?” cried the doctor, in an anxious tone of voice.
“You look out of the window-opening,” said Chris; “I’m going to look down out of this,” and passing as he spoke through a low opening, he stood in the middle of another cell-like place.
They were saluted with a shout.
“No snakes, then?” said Griggs.
“I don’t think so. None here,” cried Chris. “Are you all coming up?”
There was no need to answer, for Griggs was already leading the way, and as soon as they were all up an investigation of the place began, during which it was found that they had evidently hit upon one of the openings, or probably enough the principal one into the rock city, where upon the level where they stood some dozens of roughly carved-out, cell-like habitations communicated one with another.
There was a great deal of dust and other accumulation, for in damp spots where there was a chance for plants to exist they seemed to have grown, died, and turned to earth. Here and there, too, as the party made their way from cell to cell there were proofs that various animals had taken possession of the rough shelters and brought the prey they had captured, stores of well-gnawed bones lying scattered about; but saving the traces left of construction, cutting out of the rock and building in, they found nothing to show what kind of people they were who had lived there, nothing to prove how far back it was in the world’s history that the rock city had been occupied by a teeming population.
“How long is it since people lived here, father?” was asked by Chris, after they had been wandering about from cell to cell but not finding any way of getting higher without a dangerous climb from the terrace outward.