IN THE HIDDEN VALE—A NEW ACQUAINTANCE
With crawling, I managed to get myself away from the foot of the cliff a piece, and I found I was in a space of open ground. And I then began to think how I was to publish my predicament to my friends on the top of the cliff, some hundred, or perhaps two hundred feet above. I felt in my pocket for my flash-lamp, and it gave me much comfort, on pushing the slide, to discover that it had not been put out of commission by the fall.
At once I began to send flash after flash up there. Almost directly, I saw answering flashes aloft. And then I spelled out, in code, a brief story of my adventure; and I asked that they throw me some grub, and then to stay away till the next night, when they were to return for news of some route by which they might join me.
I waited perhaps three-quarters of an hour, when a flash of light showed above. I answered with my light. And thus came Ray's signal. "Here it comes," it said. And then in a little, something umbrella-like appeared, gently oscillating between me and the stars; in the next moment quietly collapsing on the ground, near by. I took it up; it was a parachute, made of four handkerchiefs hastily sewed together. To the strings was made fast a packet of provisions; biscuit, cheese, and a cloth bag holding a mess of codfish cooked with vegetables. And there was a note from Ray. I read:
"That was a smelly trick—to ditch us like that. If you only knew what a nasty time of it we've been having to keep Norris from sliding down there after you! He said if you could do it he could, and so on. Now don't go poking your nose in any alligator's private affairs. And wire us soon, and give us all the news of that hades, down there."
It always irked Grant Norris to know that anyone was before him in any adventure, and I began to fear that in his impetuosity he might make a try for a descent, in which event he hadn't one chance in ten to come off with as little damage as I suffered. So I signalled, then, to make no move toward seeking a way down till I gave the word, and I gave a terse hint of the great danger in such an attempt.
It was a matter of course that my friends would keep someone on watch up there; and it would be Ray and Robert, turn about; for they two, only, knew the code sufficiently well to take my signals.
I now took up the packet of grub they'd thrown down to me, and began to crawl farther from the cliff. I thus came into a wood, and it was with great labor, and great stabs of pain in my foot, that I traversed some hundreds of yards of the forest, at last to come upon the bank of the rivulet. It could be no other than that stream that tumbled through the cavern to gush out of the rock to make the little cascade.
Soon now I was bathing my swelling foot in the cool water, and I did not take it out for above an hour, and then I bound the ankle with Ray's parachute; and I sat me beside the creek, my back to a palm, feeling less discomfort, and so was able to give clearer thought to our situation. There was, of course, not the least doubt that this sink I had fallen into, was that secret retreat of Duran, we'd been searching for, and the source of all his wealth. It was the very place discovered by Carlos' father, who in an evil hour had communicated his find to the perfidious Duran. I was equally convinced that this hidden vale was hedged in on the sides, and closed at the ends, by sheer cliffs; and that that rope which had both entrapped me and then helped to save me in my fall, was some part of Duran's means of ascent and descent. It should now be my first aim to discover the other component parts and the workings of that mechanism, to the end that I might put my friends in a safe way to join me.
To accomplish this it was only necessary that I have an eye on the place when Duran should find it in his way to go out of the place in daylight. And that was a thing he was altogether likely to do, if he were to have more business in the grotto.