“Don’t shoot!”
Then a dreadful thing happened. The apex-stone of the stair seemed suddenly to sink beneath the combined weight of the two men. An instant later, with the swiftness of thought, the gigantic paws of that stone monster descended. They struck and crushed to death the two puny men who lay beneath; one of the bodies disappeared over the other side.
And as Hardy and I stared at this additional example of diabolical ingenuity, the apex-stone reappeared and the paws, as if alive, slowly began to elevate themselves to their original position, by some odd quirk of fate, surely not contemplated by the builder, carrying with them the body of the slain man that had remained.
IV.
No more was necessary to advise us that de Silva had stumbled onto our blundering trail.
The dead man, caught in that ghastly embrace, was a white whom Hardy readily recognized as an associate of the evil Spaniard in Rio de Janiero.
Though we had been but twenty-four hours in the caverns of the Ataruipe, we had observed no other sign of egress than the one that led to the water hole. Nor, in fact, was there any reason to assume that the original occupants found it necessary to go abroad very frequently. And while it was likely there were other exits, yet in the vast system of that underground world, with but a limited supply of food, it would be folly for us to attempt to locate them.
So it was that all of us felt we should at once attempt to make our escape the way we had entered, even allowing for the probable attack planned by de Silva.
First, therefore, we gave attention to that not unimportant matter as to how much treasure we should take with us. It went without saying that we planned a return with better transportation facilities, but that was in the future and much beclouded by the uncertain course of the divers persons in our band, once we were separated. Curious, indeed, was the effect on the individual members of our party of this struggle between cupidity and the instinct to survive the long journey home.
Like drunken men, the half breed Castro and the Indians wandered around, hopelessly mulling over the golden treasure there in such quantities for them to take, and which, oddly enough, seemed to attract the Indians so much more than the gems.