CHAPTER XIX.
THE CAVE.
The place in which the boys stood was a circular room about thirty feet in diameter, with a height of some twenty feet. There was but one entrance, that by which they had come, but high up on the wall were several small openings or tunnel-like passages. Around the wall of the chamber was a row of skeletons, standing stiffly upright. There was a great roughly hewed stone god or idol on the farther side, while here and there close around it on the surface of the natural stone floor were marks where fires had been built. At either side were pyramidial walls of human skulls, all perfect, though those that formed the bottom rows were black with age.
As the light from the torches flashed into the space several large bats that were in the openings began to fly wildly about.
“I wonder where they have gone?” said Tom, gazing blankly around. “There was certainly something that had hold of me, but there isn’t anything here now.”
“What was it like?” asked Jim, suddenly.
“How should I know,” returned Tom. “I couldn’t see it in the dark.”
“But you could feel it, couldn’t you?” persisted Jim.
“Why,” returned Tom, “I don’t know, just like any person I should say.”