A strong odor of sulphur hung heavily in the air, and, as I perceived it, the whole matter was plain to me. But Young sniffed at this odor suspiciously when we had brought the stretcher gently to rest upon the floor, and in a startled voice exclaimed, "Th' devil has been bustin' around in here for sure, an' he's left his regular home-made stink for a give-away!" and as he spoke there was manifest a decided bristling of his fringe of hair.
I could not help smiling at this quaint proof of the shattered condition of Young's nerves—for, under ordinary circumstances, he was the very last man in the world to place faith in things supernatural—but I answered him promptly: "Then the devil did a stroke of honest business at the same time, for all this is the work of the same thunder-bolt, or of a part of it, that killed that Indian. Didn't you hear the rocks flying from the cliff where it struck?"
"That's just what I was goin' t' say myself," Young replied, a little awkwardly. "An' that's what's the matter with Rayburn, an' made him swound away. How d' you find yourself now, old man?" he went on—rather glad to change the subject, I fancied—as Rayburn, at sound of his own name, moved a little.
"I feel queer," Rayburn answered. "Sort of numb and dizzy. Where's the Padre?"
"An' it's not much blame to you that you do feel queer," Young replied, hurriedly. "This last thing you've taken it into your fool head t' do is bein' busted all t' bits by a stroke o' lightnin'. Most folks would 'a' been satisfied with havin' their legs pretty much sliced off by Injuns—but reasonableness ain't your strongest hold, Rayburn; an' I guess it never was."
Rayburn smile faintly as Young spoke, but instead of attempting to answer him—being still numbed by the heavy shock that he had received—he settled his head back upon the rolled-up coat that served him for a pillow, and languidly closed his eyes. Whereupon Young, seeing that there was nothing further that we could do for his comfort, betook himself—as his bent at all times was when any strange matter presented itself, and in this case with the half-crazed eagerness with which those upon whom a great sorrow has fallen seek instinctively to engage their minds with any trifling matter that will change the current of their thoughts—to investigating carefully the work of destruction that the thunder-bolt had wrought: examining the fragments of the idol, and the loosened plates of gold and the place on the wall whence these last had been wrenched away; which examination was the easier because the storm-cloud was leaving us—though the almost continuous loud rolling of the thunder still stunned our ears—and a stronger light came in through the opening in the roof.
I seated myself beside Rayburn and paid no attention to what Young was doing; for my brooding sorrow was like a slow fire consuming me—as the tragedy that I had but just witnessed, and the infinite pathos that there was in seeing Rayburn thus miserably dying, overwhelmed me with a desolate despair. Even when Young called to me, in a tone so eager and so penetrating that at any other time I should have been startled into quick action by his words, I did not rouse myself to answer him; though, in a dull way, I knew that he would not thus have spoken unless some matter of great moment had aroused the full energy of his mind.
"Professor! I say, Professor!" he repeated: "Get right up and come here. Don't sit there like a chuckle-headed chump. Get up, I tell you. Here's some sort of a show for us. Here's what looks like a way out o' this God-forsaken hole!"
As I heard these words I did get up, and in a hurry, and so joined Young where he was kneeling on the floor close beside the rear wall of the oratory, directly behind where the idol had stood until the thunder-bolt had dashed it down. It was at this point, apparently, that the lightning had entered the chamber; for here several of the plates of gold with which the walls were covered—overlapping each other like fish-scales—had been loosened, while three of them had been wrenched entirely from their fastenings and had fallen down. As I joined him, Young excitedly pointed to the opening thus made, through which was visible not a solid wall of rock but a dark cavity, and from which was blowing a soft current of cool air.
"It's a way out! It's a way out! I tell you," he cried. "This suck o' wind proves it. If we only can get some more o' these blasted plates loose we'll light out o' this and euchre the Priest Captain an' his whole d—n outfit yet! Ketch hold here, Professor, an' put your muscle into it for all you're worth. Grab right here; now!" And Young and I together pulled at the same plate with all our might and main. But for all the impression that we made upon it we might as well have tried to pull down the mountain; the plate did not stir. Young gave a hearty curse (and I confess that hearing him swearing in that natural way again was a real comfort to me), and then we took another pull; and all this while, so much does the thought of saving his life put cheer into a man, my heart was bounding within me and the hot coursing of my blood seemed like to burst my veins. Young's fervor was not less than mine, and we wrenched and tugged together, and never stopped to mark our cut and bleeding hands.