Poor Joe cast his eyes about him despairingly. The sun was streaming through the lens at an angle now. What would happen when its direct rays poured down into the narrow well he could not bear to think.
CHAPTER XXVI.
SAVED FROM THE SUN GODS.
Suddenly a thought struck him. Perhaps by joining his belt and Nat’s together and then leaning over the edge of the pit he could haul his unfortunate chum up to safety. It was worth trying, anyway.
Going to the edge of the pit and leaning over, Joe communicated his idea to Nat. By this time the sun was streaming dazzlingly into the pit and only by crouching in one corner could Nat escape its ardent rays. Acting on Joe’s instructions, Nat took off his belt and threw it upward. After one or two trials Joe managed to catch it. Then, taking off his own, he joined the two together. Then he extended himself at the edge of the well, and, reaching out his arm to the utmost, lowered the two joined belts down to Nat. They were about a foot too short for Nat to reach them even with the utmost endeavor of which Joe was capable!
Things began to look black, indeed. Momentarily the sun was nearing the zenith, and the place into which Nat had fallen was so designed that when the luminary reached its highest point in the skies the excavation would be filled with its rays, magnified many times by the crystal lens. The lens, in fact, was nothing more nor less than an immense burning-glass designed to shrivel up the victims of the ancient priesthood. How little those who invented such a cruelly ingenious device could have imagined that a boy of the twentieth century would ever be in danger of losing his life by it! Yet such was the case and neither Nat nor Joe could conceal the fact from themselves an instant longer.
“Can’t you think of anything? Don’t you think you could climb up just a foot or two?” asked Joe, despairingly.
“The walls are smooth as glass. I don’t believe a fly could get a hold on them,” was the rejoinder. “Joe, the heat is getting awful!” gasped out poor Nat in conclusion.
“Gracious! What am I to do?” cried Joe to himself. He rose to his feet and gazed about him. Suddenly a thought struck him. If the priests, as seemed only too probable, really roasted people to death in that well, they must have had some means of getting the bodies out. How did they do it? It must have been by a chain or rope, or something of the sort, was the thought that struck Joe after a minute’s reflection. In that case the chain, or whatever they used for the purpose of extricating their victims, must be somewhere in the chamber.
“I’ll find it, if it’s anywhere within reach,” determined Joe.