Joe, rejoicing as much as Nat, followed the young leader of the Motor Rangers. As they advanced the air blew upon them cleaner and sweeter every instant. Both lads inhaled it in great lungfuls. It seemed as if they could never get enough of it after that oven-like chamber of the sun.
“I wonder what part of the city we’ll come out in,” said Nat presently.
“Near the camp, I hope. How astonished the others will be when we tell them of what has happened to us! I’ll bet they’ve had a tame time compared to ours.”
“I hope so for their sakes,” said Nat with a laugh, “but I guess we are out of the woods now.”
But were they? It seemed to the two young Motor Rangers, a moment later, that they were not by any means “out of the woods,” as Nat had phrased it.
Instead, they soon found themselves at the mouth of the passage; but as far from finding their friends as ever. For the tunnel emerged in the face of a precipitous cliff, below which glittered the waters of the lake. It was a cruel disappointment.
While they still stood there, almost crushed by the sense that after all they were still prisoners—and apparently hopeless ones—a startling thing happened.
In the passage behind them distant voices sounded!
Human voices they were beyond a doubt. They were borne to the ears of our two young friends with the booming sound produced by the tunnel, which formed, as it were, a giant speaking-tube.
The boys exchanged alarmed glances. Who could these denizens of the subterranean world of the island be? Survivors of the cruel race of whose practices they had just had a terrible revelation? Robbers, or worse, who had made the Lost City their rendezvous? Or was it, after all, a trick of the imagination?