“What can it mean?” she asked herself. “Can it be that those ancient people held some secrets of motion and power of which we know nothing? Does that door, like the door to a bank vault, open and close to a time schedule? And could it be working after all these years?
“How—how impossible!” she breathed.
The Indian girl heard the sound of her whisper and, as if understanding the meaning of it, put a hand upon her knee as much as to say:
“All things are possible.”
“And yet,” Jean went on to assure herself, “it is impossible. Even were it all true, how could this child know the secret of it all?”
At that moment there flashed through her mind things Johnny had told her about the ancient Maya civilization, of their culture, their sculpture, their architecture, their art expressed in the working of precious metals and polishing of jewels.
“They had mastered the art of writing, too,” she told herself, “and had great libraries. Many of these were destroyed, but some remain. Who knows but these, their descendants, have read from these scrolls the secrets of this strange underground cavern?”
So she reasoned, hoped and waited. A half hour passed, an hour, an hour and a half. As the hour of three approached even the skeptical Roderick grew restless. He rose and paced the floor. Jean pulled him down.
“I can’t hear the tap-tap when you are walking,” she said.
“Listen!” she exclaimed in an awed whisper. “It—it’s stopped!”