The boys now examined the chart for the first time. Harry started back in surprise, as he pointed to the chart, and looked up at John. "Why, there are the same marks we found on the skull at Wonder Island!" he exclaimed in great excitement.
"Quite true! and do you now wonder why I have been so much interested to find the location? Chance has thrown this opportunity our way. It is true we might be mistaken, but the description fits."
It would require pages to tell about what they found in the recesses of the cavern. Hundreds and hundreds of skeletons were discovered, and the most curious tablets and carvings in hieroglyphics were scattered in the adjoining chamber.
Peculiarly-formed tools, implements of warfare, also of metal, small slabs of uniform size, and with characters on both sides, which might have been the historical books of the singular people who lived here ages ago, were in profusion not only in the large chamber, but in the most unexpected places.
To John it was a vast storehouse of archeological wealth. To the boys it was much more. There were still some things that John did not explain, and which they wanted to know.
"Do you believe that the different parties went in and never came back again?" asked George.
"I have no doubt but the account was true."
"What became of them?"
"They probably met the fate that almost overtook us when we first went in," was the answer.