“Might there not have been survivors who managed to get away with the loot?” suggested Henry.
But at that moment, casting, his eyes from the bones to a survey of the chamber, Francis saw what made him say:
“Without doubt, no. See those gems in those eyes. Rubies, or I never saw a ruby!”
They followed his gaze to the stone statue of a squat and heavy female who stared at them red-eyed and open-mouthed. So large was the mouth that it made a caricature of the rest of the face. Beside it, carved similarly of stone, and on somewhat more heroic lines, was a more obscene and hideous male statue, with one ear of proportioned size and the other ear as grotesquely large as the female’s mouth.
“The beauteous dame must be Chia all right,” Henry grinned. “But who’s her gentleman friend with the elephant ear and the green eyes?”
“Search me,” Francis laughed. “But this I do know: those green eyes of the elephant-eared one are the largest emeralds I’ve ever seen or dreamed of. Each of them is really too large to possess fair carat value. They should be crown jewels or nothing.”
“But a couple of emeralds and a couple of rubies, no matter what size, should not constitute the totality of the Maya treasure,” Henry contended. “We’re across the threshold of it, and yet we lack the key——”
“Which the old Maya, back on the barking sands, undoubtedly holds in that sacred tassel of his,” Leoncia said. “Except for these two statues and the bones on the floor, the place is bare.”
As she spoke, she advanced to look the male statue over more closely. The grotesque ear centered her attention, and she pointed into it as she added: “I don’t know about the key, but there is the key-hole.”
True enough, the elephantine ear, instead of enfolding an orifice as an ear of such size should, was completely blocked up save for a small aperture that not too remotely resembled a key-hole. They wandered vainly about the chamber, tapping the walls and floor, seeking for cunningly-hidden passageways or unguessable clues to the hiding place of the treasure.