“See!” he exclaimed.
And well might he cry out, for in the center of the chamber lay piles of delicately contrived golden goblets, mixed with hideous-jawed dragons, flying-birds, pedestals of intricate pattern—all in gold! But most astounding of all were the replicas of human figures in gleaming yellow metal, some of them quite of life-size, others in miniature, that tilted here and there among the shining mass—all of the most exquisite workmanship, though many pieces were dented and broken; apparently the mass had been allowed to accumulate by the addition, from time to time, of defective pieces.
However, one piece, the reproduction of a slender female figure just budding into womanhood, about eighteen inches in height, lay quite near us, as if unwittingly it had been dropped. Young Anderson picked it up. The figure was heavy but quite perfect. In silent amaze we studied that exhibit of a handicraft that surely would have brought a shout of appreciation from Benvenuto Cellini, the great Italian goldsmith.
I was about to stroll over to the pile of gold, when I heard the sound of someone running. Then a man burst into the chamber. His entrance was unseemly, and I turned to chide him.
With difficulty I recognized the half-breed Gomez. His eyes were dilated, his features transformed, as, mouthing unintelligible noises, he ran toward that heap of yellow gold.
If his appearance was terrifying, the shriek that now left his lips came as a thing yet more awful. For before our gaze, while he was still a good thirty feet from the gold, there was a spurt of smoke from the running man, and he stumbled, curled up in a blaze of fire, and actually burned to death!
In my weakened condition my senses reeled at the sight and I caught at Anderson for support. Hardy and Van Dusee were soon with us, and again our worthy leader demonstrated his quick perception and resourcefulness.
“Don’t move!” he commanded. “The place is full of death points!”
A glimmering of his reasoning came to me, and I raised my eyes to what constituted the ceiling of that extraordinary cavern. The answer flashed to me that the artificers of the Ataruipe must have fashioned portions of that wondrously clear crystal formation overhead into gigantic burning glasses which, in that land of eternal sunshine, daily projected down into the cavern focal points of condensed sun’s rays that were terrific in their heat units.
But Hardy was demonstrating, and we watched him. With a long bamboo the ingenious chap felt out the deadly heat points, each of which in turn discovered itself by sending a spurt of flame from the end of the pole.