Their dungeon was dark and it had the smell of an underground place, musty, damp, stuffy. When it seemed to Cliff that hours must have passed since they had all been flung into the single unlighted cubicle he looked at the radiumited face of the watch on his wrist: hardly half an hour had elapsed.
“This is truly a terrible situation,” said Mr. Gray. “I feel very badly when I think that in coming here to help me you have all fallen into a worse situation.”
“Please don’t feel that way, Father,” Cliff begged, touching the hand that trembled a little on his knee. “You always taught me that no good intention and no act done with a good motive could ever bring anything but good.”
“It does not seem to work, this time,” said his father.
“But it will!” Tom said. “Didn’t you notice the soldier who walked with me? No, you didn’t: I remember, we were behind you. Well, it was Caya’s brother and he whispered to me to give him the quipu supposed to be the Inca’s token.”
“I didn’t know that,” Mr. Whitley spoke through the darkness. “He may try to help us.”
“Mr. Whitley,” said Nicky, “why can’t we all push on that big stone across the door? It is on some sort of a pivot: we could all push together and move it.”
“Yes, two of us could move it—the soldiers did,” Bill took a part in the talk. “But the guards are outside. By the time we could get the stone moved they could use their swords.”
“I guess we are helpless,” Mr. Whitley said remorsefully. “And it is all my fault for letting you lads come here: you should have camped on the ledge: Bill and I should have taken the risks of danger.”
“I still have faith that an Almighty Power watches over us,” Cliff declared. “We have gone through a great deal of danger and not one of us has been hurt.”