The Boy Aviators in Nicaragua; or, In League with the Insurgents

They arrived at the foot of the cliff without adventure and set to work clearing away the dense undergrowth which matted the ground at the foot of the rocky wall. Frank had first driven a peg into the ground at a point as nearly in a plumb line with the down pointing beak of the quesal as he could strike. He attached to this a bit of cord about fifteen feet in length and with this improvised compass marked out a semi-circle in which to carry on operations.

The boys’ watches indicated noon by the time they had the brush cleared and three very tired but excited lads sat down to a hasty lunch. They knew that the preliminary work had now been done and if they were on the eve of any important discovery that the afternoon’s work would probably decide it.

Lunch disposed of they set to work with a will on breaking up the ground. In this the axe and the pick wielded by Billy and Frank came in useful. They pulverized the ground – which in some places was as tough as hard-pan – so that it was easy for Harry to follow along with the shovel and spade up great clods of it. The hands of all three were soon covered with blisters and Billy, who had not yet fully recovered from his trying experiences, was fain, before the work had progressed very far, to throw down his axe with the confession:

“Boys, I’m all in.”

He was directed to sit in the shade and watch the work which he did in a rather shamefaced way although he had endured the struggle against exhaustion pluckily enough while his strength held out.

Frank’s semi-circle had been pretty well dug over by the time that the great clouds of nesting parrots from the feeding-grounds in the valley began to circle with harsh cries above the trees on the mountain-side which formed their dormitory. Harry threw down his shovel with a cry of disgust.

“Hadn’t we better call it a day, Frank,” he said, “we have dug up enough earth for a subway excavation and haven’t discovered a clue. I guess that quesal of yours was put up there for a joke – it looks like it’s been one on us all right.”

But Frank was not discouraged so easily.

“Half-an-hour more and then we quit,” he agreed, “but let’s give it one more try.”

“On that condition all right,” replied Harry, “but I’m a union man, when it comes to this sort of a job. Eight hours is enough for me, thank you.”

For perhaps twenty minutes more the boys dug in silence when suddenly Frank uttered a sharp exclamation.

His pick had struck something that gave out a ringing sound!

When he announced the news in a voice choked by excitement there was no more lethargy on Harry’s part – even Billy forgot his aching head and sore hands and went to work with a will. In fifteen minutes or so they had uncovered a large flat stone with a ring of some kind of dull metal imbedded in the center. With a loud cheer all three boys, their fatigue entirely forgotten, joined hands and executed a wild sort of war-dance round their excavation, which was perhaps three feet or so deep.

When they had danced their enthusiasm out the practical Frank somewhat dashed the hopes of the others, after carefully examining the stone, by saying quietly:

“It looks good, boys; but we’ve got to raise it.”

Here was indeed a poser. They all three tugged at the ring till their already sore hands were almost raw but not even a tremor ran through the stone which was about four feet long by three wide.

“We have no means of telling how thick it is,” said Frank, in a discouraged tone, “it may weigh ten tons for all we know.”

“We might dynamite it,” suggested Billy.

“Yes, and advertise our find to the whole country,” retorted Harry.

“I wonder what’s under it,” surmised Billy.

“Lemons perhaps,” mischievously laughed Harry.

While the other two were talking the energetic Frank had been at work. Jumping into the hole he had carefully scraped round the edge of the stone like a man trying to get a waxed cork out of a bottle.

The edges of the stone fitted so closely to the live-rock surrounding it, however, that his hope of finding a crack, in which they could put a lever and pry up the rock, was blasted. There seemed to be no way of solving the puzzling problem. All the treasures of Golconda might have been concealed under the mighty rock and the boys would have no more chance of getting at them than if they had been securely locked in the center of the earth.

It was not Frank’s nature to give anything up without a struggle to solve it, however, and he suggested one more try.

“Maybe it is balanced in some way,” he suggested.

“A good idea,” commented Harry. “What’s the matter with our all getting on one side of it and jumping together when one of us says, ‘Go.’”

“We might try it,” said Frank dubiously, “but I’m skeptical that we will obtain any results.”

“We’ll get a lot of exercise anyhow,” chimed in Billy.

“As if we hadn’t had enough to-day,” indignantly cried Harry.

Laughing – despite their anxiety – at the ridiculous sight they must present the three boys placed their arms on each other’s shoulders and solemnly pranced up and down on the rock first at one end and then at the other. Then they tried jumping on its sides. The great boulder didn’t even quiver. It was as solid under their feet as the face of the cliff itself.

“Looks like we’ll have to give it up,” said Frank at last in a disgusted tone.

“Yes, I don’t see what else we can try,” Harry agreed, “whoever stowed that rock away meant that no one but himself should ever get it up again.”

“He must have been a hopeful young party if he ever figured on doing it by his lonesome,” commented Billy, “unless he was some sort of a giant.”

“Maybe he had some magic words he chanted over it like:

“Eeny, meeny, minney mo,” suggested Harry, solemnly chanting the mystic rhyme, as if he half expected to see the rock swing back in response.

“Yes – or open sesame, – like in the Arabian Nights,” scornfully remarked Billy. “Come on, let’s quit it. It will be dark before we get back to camp if we don’t hurry.”

“We certainly have had a fine day’s work for nothing. Just to think that we’ve got to pack all this stuff back to camp with us after all instead of using it to explore the Toltec Caves of Treasure Cliff,” cried Harry, speaking the last words in a highly melodramatic tone.

“You’re a fine old fraud,” he yelled at the unmoved quesal, – looking down from the cliff, with its sunken eye, as it had gazed for almost uncounted centuries. “If I could get up there I’d fix you so as you wouldn’t fool anyone else. I’ll just take a chuck at you for luck anyway. That old unwinking orb of yours irritates me.”

As he spoke the lad stooped down and selected a large flat stone and flung it full at the carved figure with the down-pointing beak.

“Bang in the eye;” he shouted, “give me a walking-stick, Mr. Showman, I” —

Whatever he was going to say was cut short by a wild shout from Frank.

“Good lord!” he yelled, “Look there!”

Billy and Frank followed his finger as he stood pointing on the edge of the excavation.

Slowly; as if some invisible hand was pushing it up on delicately-adjusted hinges – the big rock was swinging open from its sleep of the ages!

As it yawned wider and wider the first steps of a rough flight of stairs, – apparently cut out of the living rock, – were disclosed. From the aperture, as it gaped wider, rushed out a breath of air so fetid and poisonous that the boys grew sick and faint under its baleful odor.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE FIGURE ON THE CLIFF

The boys held a hasty consultation as soon as they had retreated a safe distance from the reeking fumes of the Toltec excavation. Till the foul air of the place, probably stagnant for many hundred years, had been given a chance to pour out, it would have been folly to have wasted time on an attempt to descend into the black hole that the swinging back of the huge rock had revealed. There seemed to be little doubt, after the mystery had been discussed again and again, that Harry’s lucky shot had released some spring hidden in the quesal’s eye and caused the boulder to open. It seemed incredible; – but there was no other explanation, and it was decided to defer all discussion of the matter till a thorough examination could be made of the interior of the cavern they had stumbled upon for the hidden mechanism.

In the meantime a hasty camp was pitched, although there was little thought of sleep in the minds of any of the boys and after supper had been despatched they sat up long, with eyes that refused to grow drowsy, talking over what they were likely to find on their exploration trip, which they had agreed to undertake as soon as it grew light enough to make a start – always providing that the foul air of the place had cleared sufficiently to make such a thing feasible.

At Frank’s suggestion watches were finally set, the night being divided into three sections. Harry volunteered for the first, Frank for the second and Billy agreed to tackle the last. He was given the opportunity to select a short period of watching as both boys realized, although he indignantly disclaimed it, that he must be still feeling some effects of exhaustion from his wound.