“Looks like one, anyhow. Let’s try it and see.”
The two lads crossed the stone floor, upon which the dust of the ages lay thick and rose in choking clouds, and reached the portal which Joe had pointed out. The great ring affixed to one side of it was of some peculiar sort of metal, not unlike bronze, and was untarnished.
Not without a faster beating of his heart, Nat turned the ring. It moved easily, and as it did so the door swung outward. It was of stone, and massive as the living rock itself.
Within they made out a flight of stairs that led steeply upward into the darkness.
“Are you game to try them?” asked Nat.
“Am I? I wouldn’t go out of here without seeing where they lead.”
“Well, go easy. They might give way. Heaven only knows how old they are.”
But the stairs proved solid. They wound upward steeply, worming their way around a central pillar covered with carvings. At last the boys emerged on a kind of platform at the top, which was roofed in by an irregularly shaped covering. Right in front of them were two round holes placed at some distance apart, and at their elbows were some curious-looking bits of apparatus. One of these looked like a gigantic bellows, and another was not unlike a megaphone in form.
“Well, where on earth are we now?” gasped Joe.
“I don’t know, but light is coming in through these holes. Let’s look out and see.”