Altogether, there were nearly fifteen of the deadly contrivances in that cavern, none of which, with the exception of the most powerful one that had killed Gomez, being visible to the human eye!
The reason for this was that the focal point invariably centered about five feet ten inches from the basaltic floor—the precise point where the head of the ordinary man would be while walking.
But if the discoveries made by Anderson and me were remarkable, those of the rest of the party were equally so. Zangaree had stumbled into a chamber evidently reserved for the woman of that lost people. Here, mounted gems of unrivaled quality and size abounded, most of them proving that the Ataruipe as jewelers were equally at home in precious stones and gold.
The apparel of the men in our party was filled to overflowing with the scintillant fragments; Zangaree, in pure Afric joy, tossed a handful into the air and in the unusual light of the cavern they sparkled like fireworks as they fell. From the walls, lustrous opals flashed at us their iridescent rays; there were gems underfoot, cleverly laid in fantastic mosaics such as the mind of modern man never had conceived.
It was all too overwhelming, and we were a sobered party indeed when again we assembled for the very necessary purpose of outlining our future plans. Of course, each one of us was rich, rich beyond the dreams of avarice, and it seemed the end, or beginning of everything.
I think that for the time being there was not a single one of us, lounging there in the pit of that ghostly amphitheater, who gave a thought to the long hard way we had come, or to the thousands of miles of jungle and river that lay between us and the consummation of our desires.
Night came on apace, and soon we found ourselves enveloped in a darkness that was only saved from completeness by the trifling fire Hardy had built. Van Dusee presently sprawled down at my side, and pulled at his pipe, talked calmly, as I had never heard him talk before. For once the entomologist was gone. The thing, our experience, had swept him off his feet; his pet subject was forgotten; he had gained new orientation.
“Such artists!” he breathed prayerfully. “Those sculptured women! That exquisite miniature of Bobby’s! And all for what? To what end? Of what avail? Ah! The futility of it!”
And again he murmured, half to himself:
“To think that a thousand, yea, two thousand years ago, these wonderful people lived, breathed and had their being in this very place! What were their thoughts, their pleasures—and what, in Heaven’s name, became of the last of them?”