They did. Something came of it, too, I assure you.
It was in the midst of an all but impenetrable growth of palms and vines which, spreading over a crumbling heap of ruins seemed to wish to hide a secret, that they made the discovery, and having made it, entered upon one of the strangest and weirdest adventures any of them had ever known.
As they crawled on hands and knees, here forcing their way between the spreading leaves of a nut palm, there tearing away a wild fig vine, they came at last upon an opening. Before this opening sagged an old, decayed door. There was scarcely room to crawl between the heaps of rocks that blocked the way, but once one was inside he found that he had entered a damp, dark hallway that, extending far as his electric torch would reach, suggested mystery and romance.
Johnny was the first to enter. Jean and Roderick followed. There was a moment of hushed silence as they stood there breathing silently as if listening for voices that had long been stilled forever.
“I’ll wager the place hasn’t been visited except by bats since the year one,” said Johnny.
As if to prove that at least part of his prophecy was true, there came a whirring of wings and one of those great vampire bats, terror to all living things in Central America, flew by so close that the current of damp air stirred by his flight lifted their hair.
“The secret corridor,” Johnny said. There was a solemn note of mystery in his voice. “To what chambers of treasure does it lead? We may yet be the richest Mayas in all this little hidden kingdom.”
“Yes, and I’d take a broken sixpence for my share, could I but return to my father’s camp,” said Roderick, disconsolately.
However downcast her brother might be, Jean was still game. “Come on!” she exclaimed. “We will find the god of the rising sun, the god of the noonday sun and all the other gods with the gold and jewels that enrich their chambers. We’ll find the chamber of the ancient princess. What shall we not find. Come on. C’mon! C’mon!” Seizing her brother by the arm, she fairly dragged him down the corridor which, to those who came from the hot dryness of tropical day, seemed to possess the chill dampness of perpetual night.
On tip-toe, lest perchance they might waken the spirits of other centuries, they began their march down the wide corridor. Only the diffident snap-snap of great bats disturbed the silence of the place. Walking in deep, age-old dust, they made no sound. So, awed into silence, gripping one another by the arm, they marched on until, having covered some two hundred feet, they came to a sudden halt before what appeared to be a solid stone wall. Certainly it was stone, and it looked as solid as the Rock of Gibraltar.