Stanley was on the point of making a wrathy reply when the humor of the situation struck him. Soncco, in spite of his shrewdness, was childish in many ways. With the thong tied to his feet and the other end in Stanley’s possession, it would have been an easy matter to upset the old man and then pounce upon him. But of course he did not intend to do anything of the kind. With a smile he submitted to his companion’s whim. Then he fell to work in earnest, carefully following the plan formulated by Ted and himself after much discussion.
The passage under the wall had been left partly open by Soncco when he brought back the boxes of dynamite from the other side. Therefore Stanley had to close it again. He began by rolling stones into the tunnel and pushed them to the far end, packing in the open spaces between them with earth. When half of it had been filled he carefully planted the explosive, placing the fuse so that it led out where Soncco was sitting. Then he shut up the remaining portion of the passage with earth and the largest stones he could handle.
This took several hours of the hardest kind of work. Stanley was nearly exhausted when the task was completed.
“Now listen,” he said, seating himself by the side of his guard. “If you fail us in this one detail, everything will be lost.”
“I am willing to hear. Speak!”
“Here is a white cord,” Stanley explained, placing the end of the fuse in Soncco’s hands. “I will leave it here in plain view. To-morrow you must have a trusted guard stand on this spot beginning with the rising of the sun. He must not go away from this place for an instant, understand, for it all depends upon his faithful performance of the duty you will impose upon him.”
“What is that duty?”
“When the light of your god, the sun, is suddenly blotted out, as it were, by a hand to hide his face in shame over the actions of his child Quizquiz, and of all the rest of you, too, who meekly permit him to do such fiendish things; when the blackness of night has enveloped the valley, although it is only noon; when the bats leave their caves, and the beasts of prey come out of their dens to kill their defenseless victims, thinking the day is over—that will be the time for him to act. Fire must be applied to the end of this cord. It will begin to burn and sputter, and later will send out a message that will be heard throughout the valley, and even far beyond. But I must caution you of this: when the cord begins to give off its first crackling sparks, let the man who lighted it flee from the spot. His work here will be finished, so he must hurry back to the encampment, and not stop running until he reaches it.”
Soncco appeared greatly impressed.
“The message that will be conveyed by the cord,” he asked in an awed whisper, “will it reach the sun?”