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

Harry kept up a fire, for although it was not chilly the boys knew that once in a while a jaguar, bolder than his fellows, had been known to attack rubber-cutters, and they were by no means inclined to have the success of their expedition marred by anything approaching a tragedy. Having nothing better to do the lad amused himself by singing in a not particularly melodious way. Harry knew more about aeroplanes than he did of music and the tone effects he produced were something weird.

He had just attained a particularly high note and was congratulating himself – as is the way of people who have accomplished something they didn’t think they could do – when a sound that had startled both Frank and himself before, suddenly brought his satisfaction to an abrupt period.

It was the mysterious bell again!

It was pealing with the same frenzied, timeless clamor that it had manifested on the two previous occasions they had heard it, but it sounded somehow much nearer than it had from the camp on the plateau.

“Ahoy there!” shouted Harry; determined if there was a human agency at work to get some sort of reply, “ahoy!”

There was only the echo of his voice coming hollowly back from the face of the cliff for an answer.

His shouts, however, awoke Frank and Billy.

“Whatever is the matter, Harry?” demanded Frank.

“It’s the bell again,” replied Harry in awestruck tones.

Before Frank could frame an answer or Billy could speak, the furious pealing broke out anew.

“Why, it’s close at hand – somewhere!” exclaimed Frank, after he had listened attentively, his head on one side, for several seconds.

“Sounds as if it might come from the cliff itself;” said Billy; who was feeling rather nonplussed as the metallic clashing continued without interruption, but in the same furious aimless way already familiar to the boys.

“That’s right, Billy,” agreed Frank, “if I’ve got any ear for location of sound it is coming from the cliff.”

“How can it come from there!” protested Harry, as the bell ceased as suddenly as it had begun, “I’m sure we looked carefully enough over that wall of rock, and there’s nothing even resembling an opening in it – even supposing,” he added “that anyone would be crazy enough to climb up there – which they couldn’t do anyhow – and ring a bell.”

“Perhaps it’s some kind of a bird or animal,” suggested Billy, eager to find some satisfying solution of the uncanny sound.

“Yes, a chimes-bird or a bell-rabbit,” scornfully snorted Harry, “no, we’ll have to do better than that.”

“There’s no doubt it’s a sure-enough bell,” decided Frank.

“And a good loud one, too,” replied Harry. “I never heard a clearer or better one even on a church.”

“But who in thunder can be ringing it?” resumed Frank.

“There we are, back at the beginning of the question again,” rejoined Harry disgustedly.

“You can’t convince me that it hasn’t got something to do with the cave,” exclaimed Frank. “Possibly with the very door we uncovered to-day.”

“I suppose the man who rings it marches in prompt at midnight every night – when we had to dig up the ground with pick-axes before we could get it loose enough to shovel – try again, Frank;” laughed Harry.

“Mightn’t it be monkeys?” was Billy’s contribution.

“Where would they get the bell?” demanded Frank.

“Hum; that’s so,” replied Billy, abashed at the dashing to earth of the theory he had so hopefully advanced.

“If he’d start up again,” said Frank suddenly, “we could get a line on just where the sound is coming from and then when it gets light examine every foot in that direction.”

Both his listeners agreed that this would be a good idea. But if the bell-ringer had heard them and maliciously made up his mind not to grant their wish he could not have remained more silent.

“Perhaps if you’ll sing again, Harry,” remarked Frank, unkindly, after the younger boy had related for the dozenth time how the bell-ringing of that particular night had started; “he will get mad and start pulling the rope once more.”

Overlooking the deliberate insult, in his desire to find out if the bell-ringer would not oblige, Harry lustily started an old high-school song. But though he sang till his throat cracked, and his listeners’ ears ached, he disturbed nothing but an old white owl that flew from some hiding-place on the face of the cliff, and flapped solemnly round the boys’ camp, – its great yellow eyes gleaming wickedly.

“R-r-r-r-r,” shivered Billy, as the silent bird wheeled by them so close they could almost have touched it, and suddenly let out an ear-splitting screech that made all the boys jump in spite of themselves. “I hope that it isn’t some spirit, or something, of the old Toltecs that has been ringing the bell to keep us away from their cave. I don’t mind anything I can hit with a firearm but I haven’t much fancy for going into a haunted cave.”

“The only ‘hants’ you’ll find in there will be bats and a few relatives of our white-feathered friend that just disturbed you – I hope you are not going to sport any plumage of his color,” laughed Frank.

“Come, Frank, that isn’t fair,” protested Billy, indignantly, “and I saw you jump yourself when that old owl let out that holler.”

“I didn’t mean it seriously,” laughed Frank, good-naturedly, seeing that he had really hurt Billy’s feelings, “but you don’t, for a moment suppose that there is anything in whatever those steps may lead down to but dust and darkness and bad air, do you?”

“I don’t, eh?” retorted Billy angrily, “well, what do you think I dug till I nearly dropped dead for – my health?”

“I suppose you are figuring on running into a treasure trove as soon as we get in there,” grinned Harry. “If they took as much care to hide their valuables as they did to lock the front door we’ll be a long time, and have a lot of hard work before us, – before we discover the Toltecs’s secret.”

“Pshaw,” replied Billy magnanimously, “what do you suppose I care for the hard work? Anyhow I wasn’t serious with you fellows. There might be all the treasure the Toltecs ever saw, – and Captain Kidd and Sir Henry Morgan thrown in, concealed in that cave, or whatever it is at the bottom of that passage, but I’ve no right to even a share of it – I’m far too deeply in the debt of you fellows for anything like that.”

“No, Frank; no, Harry; it isn’t the money I care about at all – though I don’t deny I can always use all I get my hands on. That’s not the point, however, this is your discovery, not mine, and I’m going to help you out on it all I can. I don’t want a penny, but if we really find any buried treasure the very idea of it will be all I want in the way of a big sensation.”

“Nonsense, Billy,” rejoined Frank, touched at the reporter’s earnestness. “We are in this thing as partners. We all share the dangers, we’ll each take an equal share of the reward, always supposing there is any.”

“Of course we will, Billy,” put in warm-hearted Harry, “and when we get back to America you’ll be able to buy the Planet and fire your managing editor.”

“I don’t know of anything I’d like better,” replied Billy in all seriousness, while the boys shouted with laughter at his grave face, “although,” he added, “I do owe him a debt of gratitude for sending me down here.”

“I don’t see what you’ve done for the paper, Billy, however,” returned Frank.

“The wires are all tied up, aren’t they?” replied the business-like Billy, “what could I get through? As a matter-of-fact I’m getting more good material, sticking round with you fellows, than I could collect in a year by myself.”

Further conversation was cut short at this point by a sudden cry from Harry, who had been sitting with his knees clasped gazing up at the dark sky, which was dissected as though by a knife-blade by the black wall of the cliff-summit where it cut across it.

“What is it, Harry?” demanded Frank.

“Well, there’s something very funny about that cliff, that’s all, – or else I’ve got optical delusions,” rejoined the youth in an earnest tone.

“Yes,” said his hearers breathlessly, for Harry’s startled face was sufficient evidence that he had seen something surprising.

“You can believe me or not, as you like,” returned Harry, “but a few seconds ago, as you and Billy were talking, I’ll swear I saw a man’s figure outlined against the sky at the top of the cliff.”

CHAPTER XVII.

THE TOLTEC’S STAIR

Viewed in the cheerful light of the next morning the uncanny happenings of the night did not have nearly so serious a complexion. In fact both Frank and Billy were sorely tempted to laugh at Harry, and the latter himself was also inclined to think that he might have been mistaken about the figure on the cliff. He even went so far as to admit, under a severe fire of cross-examination that it might, – mind you he only said it might – have been a monkey.