Under such tender ministrations, Bruno quickly revived, and, after assuring himself that the Children of the Sun were alive and unharmed, while the Lost City was now left far behind them, he huskily begged uncle Phaeton to descend to earth, where he might find water enough to remove what remained of that loathsome disguise!
But Professor Featherwit was far too shrewd a general to take any unnecessary risks. His last glimpse of yonder valley showed him hundreds of armed redskins rushing at top speed for the various passes by which that circle of hills could be over-passed, and he knew that chase would be made as long as the faintest ray of hope lured the Aztecs on.
Thus it came that no halt was made until the inland reservoir was reached, where there could be no possible danger in making a temporary landing. And then Bruno stole away in hot haste, both to wash his person and to reclothe it in garments not quite so ridiculous as he now felt that savage rig must appear.
“Just as though the little woman wasn't used to see fit-outs like that, old man,” mocked Waldo, the irrepressible. “She'll go scare at you in this rig; see if she doesn't, now!”
Whether or no Gladys was actually frightened as Bruno made his appearance, need not be decided here; but one fact remains: she acted a vast deal shyer than when she saw her gallant defender lying as if dead, with the red blood flowing over his face.
Naturally enough, Cooper Edgecombe seemed fairly crazed by his joy. After so many long years of hopeless grief and wistful longing, to find his loved ones, safe and sound, far more beautiful than of yore! Surely enough to turn the gravest of men into a laughing, jesting, voluble lad!
But throughout it all ran a vein of sadness and of mourning. Neither Aztotl the noble, nor Ixtli the gallant, could so soon be forgotten. And more than one pair of eyes grew dim, more than one voice turned husky, as mention was made of both life and death,—peace to their ashes!
Heavily burdened as the air-ship now was, it would be unwise to add more, and so but a few minor articles were removed from the cavern, which had for so long sheltered the exiled aeronaut, then the lever was touched, and the vessel rose slowly into air, making one leisurely circuit of the lake, in order to show the Children of the Sun where their husband and father came so perilously nigh to entering upon a subterranean voyage to the far-away Pacific. And, luckily as it appeared, they were just in time to see that “big suck” drag another huge tree down into its ever hungry maw.
Not until the shades of night again began to settle over the earth did the professor permit another halt, but then many miles lay between that Lost City of the Aztecs and their present position, and, after selecting a pleasant spot for alighting, preparations for their first al-fresco meal in company were begun.
That proved to be a pleasant meal, and yet a more pleasant evening there in the wilderness,—the first, but by no means the last, partaken of,—for, now they need no longer fear the heathen, Professor Featherwit was eager to more thoroughly explore that strange land.