In the tiger's lair

Upon reaching the entrance to the underground chamber they stopped. The vision of Timichi, the demented, self-styled king they had encountered on their previous visit, loomed up before them. What if he were still alive and had observed their approach? It was not probable, for even years ago he had been very old and in ill health; but it was just barely possible that he still lived. In that event he would be awaiting them in the darkened passageway with some heavy weapon with which to attack them. He had every advantage, and that he would submit to the seizure of the treasure without putting up a fight was out of the question.

“Let’s call to him,” Ted suggested. “Perhaps he will recognize our voices or his name and come out—if he is in there.”

They called “Timichi,” then “Loco,” which latter was the name he had liked and which applied to him so well. But there was no response. Then they advanced slowly, but no sinister figure dashed out of the blackness to dispute their way.

A few steps and they had entered the treasure-chamber. The light from the openings in the ceiling shone full upon their faces. They broke into a run in their eagerness to reach the shining heaps of yellow metal. Then they slackened their pace, stopped, and stared hard—first straight ahead and then at one another. Was it true? Could it be possible? Or were they dreaming? For a moment they were speechless, but Stanley finally managed to force the fateful words through his lips.

“It’s gone, it’s gone!” he cried hoarsely. “The gold is gone!”

“Yes, it’s gone!” Ted echoed. “There is not a speck of it left. All our trouble is for nothing.”

Stanley burst into a laugh almost hysterical in its sudden shrillness.

“Why, what a pair of chumps we are! Timichi must have taken it away. He was the only one this side of the wall. He got some foolish notion or other into his head and so carried away the treasure.”

“Of course! And being old and feeble, he could not have taken it very far. He took it to one of the neighboring caves, where we shall find it in a few minutes. It did give me a scare, though, to find the place empty.”

“Same here,” agreed Stanley. “For a minute I was thunderstruck. I could not even think straight.”

They hurried from the cavern and began a systematic exploration of the numerous openings that led to subterranean chambers in the mountainside. Some were so dark that they had to make constant use of their flash-lights in finding their way about. Others were illuminated by shafts of daylight that entered through crevices overhead. Most of the caves bore no evidence of ever having been occupied; others had evidently been used as lairs by curious wild beasts of a bygone age, and their bones, mingled with those of the creatures on which they had preyed, strewed the earthen floor.

At last they came to the cave where Timichi had pointed out to them the rows of his silent subjects. They had avoided this place until the last, because they did not want to look upon the rows of dead. Now, as they had half expected, they found the remains of Timichi, dressed in his gorgeous finery, and sitting on a stone with his head resting against the wall, as if surveying his little kingdom of the departed. It was weird and pathetic and they did not stay long.

As for the gold, it had not been found. It had disappeared as completely as if the rumbling craters had opened and engulfed it with their fiery mouths.

“It’s the most mysterious thing I ever heard of. There were tons of it, and it does not seem possible that Timichi could have carried it away at all.”

“I’ll bet he didn’t. Some one else has been here since we left. Let’s look around,” Ted replied.

The underground river occurred to them first of all. It was by this means that they had made their escape during their previous visit to the dismal place, just as it seemed they were condemned to a living death in company with the demented Timichi.

When, after a tedious journey along the murky margin of the lagoon, they finally reached the mouth of the subterranean stream, they found the entrance blocked by a mass of stones. Nor was the barrier the result of a landslide, as they had supposed when they tried to force their way through from the other side; the stones had been placed there by human hands. Some one had indeed anticipated their return and had tried to forestall them in every way.

Then they returned to the cave in which the gold had been concealed and carefully looked around for traces or clews of the one who had removed the treasure, and after a lengthy search their efforts were rewarded. A faint trail led from the entrance toward the great wall. They followed the indistinct path, breathless with anticipation; it ran straight to the point where the wall joined the abrupt mountainside. And there, under the massive structure, a hole had been dug large enough for men to pass freely to and fro. The gold had been carried back into the Hidden Valley.

“Quizquiz!” both shouted in one breath. “It was he. No one else would have thought of it or had the cunning to put through such an undertaking.”

The hole had been partially blocked with a heap of earth and stones.

“Not even this place, which had the reputation of being the home of the devils, could stop Quizquiz,” Stanley said. “I see through it now. After our escape in the canoe he planned to get us back. He had the hole dug and found that we were gone. Then they saw the underground river. Putting two and two together, he could easily figure out how we got away. He knew we should return, so he had the river blocked and carried away the gold.”

“We are stumped, all right,” Ted admitted. “All my wonderful plans have gone soaring. We might as well go back and forget about the whole thing. But it is a bitter pill to swallow.”

They made their way to the plane slowly and suffering all the agony of keenest disappointment; their hopes and ambitions were not to be realized. Their dreams of the future had vanished in thin air.

“Let’s have a bite to eat,” Stanley suggested. “I feel faint and weak. Then we can fly back to the field, give up our jobs, and get back home—soon, I hope; the sooner the better.”

“What about all the stuff we brought with us?” Ted asked. “We shall not need it.”

“No! We might as well dump it. No use to carry back the extra weight. And, by the way, what is in those boxes? They are awfully heavy. I could tell we had a big load aboard because I could not get the ship to climb fast.”

“That is the dynamite,” Ted said calmly.

“What?” in consternation.

“Dynamite. About a hundred pounds of it!”

“Do you mean to tell me those boxes are full of dynamite?”

“Certainly. We should have needed it to blow open the entrance to the underground river.”

“Good heavens!” Stanley fairly shrieked. “Think of carting along a load of dynamite in a country like this. If we had had a forced landing we should have blown into bits.”

“I thought of that. But a forced landing in a mountainous country would have meant our finish anyway. So what is the difference?”

“I guess you are right, but if I had known it I should not have attempted to fly a single inch until we had taken it out. It is a good thing you did not tell me about it.”

“What shall we do with it?”

“Get rid of it as soon as we can.”

“But if any one from the valley should come here he would find it,” said Ted. “I have an idea. Let’s mark the boxes for Quizquiz and leave a note saying that if he hits them with his golden sceptre he will see all his forefathers; then shove the boxes through the hole under the wall.”

“It would serve him right, but they cannot read. Besides, we do not want to kill any one. We shall have to hide it or throw it into the lake.”

“No, not throw it into the lake,” Ted said, with a peculiar shudder. “We are not out of here yet; we might need it!”

“Are you predicting more trouble? Hasn’t enough happened to us already?”

“I don’t know. But something tells me not to throw it away. I feel queer; it might be my imagination, but it is true just the same.”

“All right; do anything you like with it. But we will take it out of the ship this very minute; and the other things, too. We cannot be bothered with useless baggage.”

They unlashed and unloaded the boxes. Then they ate a light lunch.

“We can hide everything in one of the smaller caves,” Ted decided. “No one will go prowling around in any of them. And if—I almost said when—we need the things we shall know where to find them.”

When they had disposed of the packages they prepared to depart. It was mid-afternoon and they must lose no more time in returning to the field. The colonel, no doubt, was anxious about them already.

In order to take off properly they were compelled to head toward the great wall because a current of air came from that direction. But the distance was sufficient to enable them to clear it by an ample margin. They also wanted to circle above the valley a few times for a farewell glimpse of the hiding-place of the last of the once powerful Incan nation, for soon they should leave it, never to return.

With a steadily increasing roar of the engine the ship raced over the ground, and when it had gained enough headway Stanley pulled back the stick and the plane leaped into the air. In a moment they had cleared the wall by a hundred feet. Now they were skimming above the depression concealing the Inca’s stronghold.

Ted leaned out over the rim of the gunpit in order to have a good view of the fleeting ground below them. There was the river down which Moses had steered their plunging canoe to safety on the night of their escape, spread across patches of velvet green; stone huts that looked like toy blocks were scattered over the barren places, some in rows, others in groups and villages. People, terrified by the monster thundering over their heads, were scurrying to cover behind stone walls and into doorways. Far, far in the distance was a great city; Ted recognized it as the Patallacta, or City on the Hill, where they had first met Huayna Capac, the old king. Nearer was another collection of buildings covering a large territory; that was the City of Gold, with its palaces, gardens, and the great temple of the sun. Ted remembered it, too, only too well, for it was there they had been tried and condemned because of Quizquiz’s treachery. But they had escaped, thanks to Moses! And here they were again, safe, high in the air, out of reach of their enemy.

Without warning there came a few loud explosions from the exhausts, the engine hesitated, picked up again for a moment, slowed down, faltered, and stopped. Stanley realized immediately that the fuel in the main tank was exhausted, so he quickly shut off the feed-valve and turned on the supply from the second reservoir, after which he dived at a steep angle, so that the rush of air might spin the propeller and thus crank the engine. But the expected roar did not come. Apparently the gasolene did not flow, for while the propeller was turning, there was only the coughing sound of a dead engine. He looked at the indicator in alarm; the tank was full, there was no mistake about that.

Almost before he knew it he was so near the ground that there was not time for further efforts to determine the cause of the trouble. He barely succeeded in straightening out the diving craft before it struck the earth with a thud. They cavorted along over a rock-strewn field beside the river, bounding and threatening to upset, and when the ship finally came to a stop the two were too dazed for speech. For, in their wild sprint over the uneven ground the propeller had struck a boulder and one of the blades was shattered.

They were indeed in an unenviable predicament. Not for all of the gold of the Incas should they have entered the Hidden Valley voluntarily. Yet fate had decreed that they should find themselves there, and under the most distressing circumstances. The ship was as useless as if it had been broken into bits, and there was no other means of escape.

They were as good as in the hands of Quizquiz, their enemy, who did not know the meaning of the words fair play or mercy. He would come to them soon with his hordes of followers, overwhelm them, and gloat over them as a beast of prey might do over its victim, exulting over their helplessness and over his own unlimited power. At last his day had arrived when he could repay them for the humiliation they had caused him during the athletic contests, where they had made such a superior showing against him and the other picked youths of the nation. And their escape—that rankled, too.

As they thought of these things they grew pale and shuddered. There could be but one outcome of the misadventure, and they knew only too well what that end should be.