"He and Jurgens," said Townsend gravely, "wouldn't be above anything. This is a rare opportunity to get all of us out of the way—too good an opportunity, I'm afraid they'll think, to be allowed to pass. We'd better depend upon our own efforts, and dig out as quick as we can. We'll have to be quick, too, before hunger and thirst get the better of us."
"Have you any idea, Townsend," asked Matt, "why that Man from Cape Town should put an idol's head in that iron chest?"
"Not the slightest," declared Townsend. "I can't believe it possible that he is trying to hoax anybody. We must not lose sight of the fact that the lady I am to look for, in this city, he claimed to be his daughter. I was to find her, you may perhaps remember, open the chest in her presence and divide the contents of the chest equally. It would be difficult for us to divide an idol's head, and there would be small gain for us, even if we did it. No, no, boys, there is something more back of this—another mystery among the many that have already put us at sea."
"Something must have turned the brains of Jurgens, Bangs and Carl," remarked Matt, "and that could not have happened until the chest had been opened. Could you make a guess as to what it was, Townsend?"
"Guesses are easy—but profitless. Bangs, you say, is a prisoner. If he recovers his wits, perhaps he will tell us what we want to know."
"That creole in St. Peters Street," put in Dick, "may not hang onto Bangs if we don't show up at the house to-night. We told him we'd come, but he may think we've slanted away for good and let Bangs go. He told us Bangs was a messmate of his."
"Well," suggested Townsend, "there's Carl. He'll be able to tell us something when he comes to himself and finds you again. If——"
There came a snap as of broken metal from Dick's end of the vault, followed by a muttered exclamation.
"What's the matter, Ferral?" asked Townsend.