But one mystery only opened the door for another. Surely, none of the bones were those of animals recently slain. Whence, then, had they come? And how had Wuff discovered them?
Emboldened by the gathering light, Ru arose and started out to inspect. To his surprise, he did not have far to look—around a bend in the gallery, not more than a hundred yards away, he found a complete solution. And at the same time he observed that which filled him once more with misgivings.
In a little nook or side-grotto of the cavern, the bones of animals were strewn in bewildering profusion. Cast one on top of another in a heap that towered above his head over an area great enough to seat a hundred men, they stared at him with the ghastliness of a graveyard dismantled—great bones and small bones, bones straight and whole and bones crushed and shattered, bones clean and white and bones dirt-crusted and discolored, the skulls of birds mingling with the broken jaw-bones of wild cattle and bison, the teeth of wolves and bears, the horns of rhinoceroses, and the curling tusks of the mammoth.
For many minutes Ru stood staring at that gruesome spectacle. He was not less fascinated than alarmed; he knew that he had made a discovery as meaningful as it was appalling. Beings of his own kind had inhabited this cave—no doubt inhabited it at this very moment! At any instant they might thrust themselves upon him! Perhaps even now they were peering out at him from unseen recesses! But what sort of men were they? Were they to be welcomed or dreaded?
To this question he received an early answer. As he stood regarding the great mass of bones inquiringly, his attention was caught by a half-hidden object with familiar outlines. And, reaching down with a shudder, he drew forth—a battered human skull!
Recoiling as if shot back by a spring, he cast the hideous trophy from him—and at the same instant caught sight of another skull with leering human eye-sockets!
A shiver came over him; the hair on his head and neck prickled and bristled as if to stand up straight. All too well he understood! Sudden and terrorizing visions came to him of the man-eaters he had encountered among the woods; and he knew that once again he was straying into the haunts of cannibals!
CHAPTER XX
From Bad to Worse
For a long while Ru was uncertain what next to do. He knew that he must at last be approaching an entrance to the cave, for no tribe of men could penetrate far into the interior; yet just when escape was almost within his grasp, the hope of it was snatched from him. If he were to continue toward the expected exit, would he not encounter the man-eaters? and would it not be better even to die of starvation than to fall beneath their clubs?