Joe laughed.
“From what we know of the folks that used to live here they used to make corned beef out of anyone they didn’t like, so don’t worry about that end of it, old fellow.”
“That’s so,” agreed Nat. “I wonder, for instance, if this business we’re sitting on at this moment isn’t an old altar of some kind. Looks as if it might have been.”
“It does that,” agreed Joe, “and see here, Nat, here’s a metal ring right here in this slab of stone. I wonder if they used to tie their poor victims to it?”
He indicated a big ring of dull, greenish metal which they had not noticed before. It was countersunk in one of the slabs of stone that formed the top of the altar.
Nat examined it.
“I guess more likely it was used to raise this stone,” he said. “Maybe the altar is hollow inside and contains relics of some sort.”
“Cracky! I’d like to raise it,” declared Joe; but, although he tugged and pulled till his ruddy face was redder than usual, Joe could make no impression on the stone.
“Let me try,” suggested Nat.
With what idea, he could not exactly say, the boy gave the ring a gentle twisting motion instead of tugging at it. Then an astonishing thing happened. The entire top of the altar tipped downward and the boys were shot, scrambling and struggling, into the interior of the altar, if such it had been. Before they knew just what had occurred they found themselves in total darkness, for, having tipped them off, the stone had swung into place again.