“There are all sorts of caves and things like that about here,” he went on. “It’s all very mysterious and—and sort of bewitching.”
“Caves?” said Pant, awaking to his most urgent need. “Are they near? Do you suppose they are quite dark?”
“I am told,” Kirk’s voice was low again, “that there is a very great one not four miles back in the bush, and dark. It is said you are no more than inside it before you are fairly immersed in darkness.”
“The very place!” exclaimed Pant. “I must go there at once.”
“Must you?” Kirk’s voice was full of surprise.
This changed at once to entreaty. “Won’t you please let me go along? No one who lives here will take me. I have a servant, a huge Carib, a very giant of a man who will be our bodyguard.”
“That’s all right,” said Pant, rising. “Be glad for the company. But why do those who live here refuse to enter the cave?”
“Haunted.” The other boy’s tone was impressive. “They say the cave is haunted by the ghosts of more than a thousand Maya Indians who are supposed to have fled there from their enemies and to have perished centuries ago.”
“One wouldn’t care to come upon their bones in such a place.”
Kirk shuddered.