“It’s a secret opening in the wall,” he told himself. “I have found the hiding place of the ‘Rope of Gold’.”
“Or you have found death,” a voice seemed to whisper. “You are more than a hundred feet above the mountain top.”
CHAPTER III
THE HIDDEN PITFALL
Not once in all his young life had Johnny Thompson felt so near his end as when he felt himself shooting downward into the unknown heart of the ancient Citadel.
That there were cavities, cisterns, secret passages, and air-vents running here and there through that massive pile of stone, he knew well enough. Some of them he and Curlie, ever hopeful of finding the hidden treasure, had explored. Some cavities had been prisons, others granaries, and one vastly greater than all others had been a cistern for storing rain water.
“But this one?” His heart stopped beating. What if it were an air shaft, running to the very bottom, a hundred feet below? He dared not think. What if it were indeed a storage place for treasure? What if he landed on piles of clinking gold? He dared not hope.
At this moment life, the priceless gift, seemed more precious than ever before. The affair was over in a fraction of a second, yet in that brief span of time all the bright glory of life in this beautiful world appeared to flash before him.
Thud! He struck with a sudden force that drove his knees into his chin and set his teeth rattling.
Instantly there was the sound of wild commotion all about him. “Bats!” he told himself. “Wait till I get out my flashlight. They’ll scurry away fast enough. Only hope the torch is not broken in the fall. Whew! How glad I am to be alive!”
It was with trembling fingers that he at last drew the small flashlight from his pocket.